Now I'm Ready To Be Free
by Yaymab
Summary: A dramatic fanfic about the imaginary formation of the band The Used. Yay :)
1. Chapter 1

1 Rachel.

The only person who could hurt my brother more than anyone else was my brother himself. I'd known it ever since kindergarten, when he'd stabbed his own hand with a coloring pencil for no apparent reason. He was five. I was seven. Everyone was sure it had been just an accident. Except me.

As he grew up, it got worse. He started biting his fingernails until they bled, he often got himself into fights at school and always got away with a black eye—which was probably his goal. Not to mention all the fights he got in at home. Don't get me wrong, our parents were loving, caring and normal—to a certain extent… maybe a little too religious—but as any teenager, my brother got carried away. Maybe it was the drugs. Eventually I discovered the thin red lines right above his wrists that he tried so hard to cover up, and somehow I was not surprised. And it wasn't just that. He also constantly put himself down, insisting on how he wasn't worth anything, he had no talent, he was just ruining the lives of everyone around him. He hated himself, and that was why he loved the pain so much. He loved to punish himself. And despite the many times I tried to cheer him up, he always reached the same morbid conclusion. That he should just die.

Fortunately, that never happened. I never expected it to happen either, because I knew he wasn't stupid enough to do that to me, or mom and dad, or our two sisters and our little brother. He knew how much we all cared about him.

I was so different from him. I had an acceptable number of friends, a self-esteem mostly higher than average and mediocre grades that still made me look like a nerd next to my brother. And now I was going to college, following my sisters' footsteps. And he wasn't going anywhere.

That had been very clear since the "big fight", the one that had left him roaming the streets, homeless at sixteen year old. The cause of the fight had been meaningless, something about scratching the car, but the fight itself had reflected all the things my parents—and my other siblings, to be honest—hated about my brother. His self-destructive habits, his freakish friends, his tendency to break the rules just to piss off other people and that way he had of _not giving a shit_. He was a stain on our "perfect" family. So they kicked him out.

That night, so long ago, when the front door had slammed behind him, when the storm had swallowed every part of him as well as a big part of me… that night had truly split us up. It had broken the friendship between us, the trust between him and our whole family. He'd become an iceberg, floating away from the main land slowly but steadily. He left school too—not that he'd been very much around in the first place—so our encounters became more and more rare, until I barely saw him anymore—which sucked because among all my siblings, he was by far my favorite, maybe because he stood out so much.

In fact, I hadn't seen him in a while and wasn't expecting that to change when the doorbell rang that night. So of course I was very surprised to see, behind the door of my apartment, something like my brother. Except worse.

His long blond hair, soaked from the rain outside, covered most of his thin expressionless face. His black hoodie and his jeans were torn and dirty and almost made him look menacing. But when he leaned against the doorframe unsteadily and looked up at me with his light blue eyes—like diamonds in the middle of that wreck—slightly tinted red, I knew that he was no more dangerous than a lost puppy. And that he was stoned.

"Hey, Roach," he muttered, a dumb smile growing on his face. I hated that nickname. "You have a bathroom right?"

"Bert…" I wanted to say so many things at once, tell him every thought that crossed my mind since the last time I had seen him, share my life with him like I was used to, but all I could do was answer his stupid question. "Of course I have a bathroom, dumbass."

"Oh… that's great, you know…" He spoke slowly, as if he had trouble focusing on his words. "Because I think I'm gonna—" Suddenly, his eyes widened and he covered his mouth with a limp hand. It was clear enough. Only then did I notice he smelled like the inside of a glass of beer. Well, at least he had the decency to follow my pointed index and make his way to the kitchen sink before emptying the content of his stomach.

And then he just fell. Passed out right there in the middle of my tiny kitchen, right under my sad eyes. I let the water of the sink flow to clean it up and cupped my hands together to collect a handful of cold water that I threw on his face. Nothing happened. I slowly knelt next to him and wiped the water off his face with my sleeve.

A flow of emotions invaded me then, replacing my rather cold and apathetic approach. I felt so happy to see him again, realising just how much I'd missed him and feeling the loneliness I had successfully ignored until then weighing upon me with a sudden aggression. But at the same time, I felt so sad to see him that way, wondering what he'd been through, what kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into, what would happen to him now. At least he was still alive.

He was too heavy for me to carry, so I dragged him all the way to my small room—all the rooms in my apartment were small, obviously—and left him next to my bed, making sure to put a comfty pillow under his head, after what I went back to the kitchen to resume what I had been doing before the ring of the doorbell. Making a huge chocolate cake.

Alright, I wasn't really good, but I had a friend who could cook so well it made me jealous and I wanted to prove to her that I could do it too. Sure, it was silly, but I realised that cooking could be fun, especially when I got to eat half the dough before I even cooked it.

About half an hour later, everything was done. Spreading delicious icing all over my cake had almost made me forget my unexpected visitor, which is probably why I jumped when I saw him standing in the doorway silently, like a ghost, staring at me with apologetic eyes.

"Gosh, Bert, you could've knocked or something."

"Sorry." It was meant for much more than the scare he'd given me, I could tell. He didn't add anything, though I knew he had more than enough to say to fill in the next few hours.

"Um… you want some cake?" I asked to break the awkward silence.

A faint smile passed quickly over his lips before disappearing again. He seemed much more alert than before. Sober. "Yeah, sure," he said, "it's not like I get to eat cake every day."

"You know, normal people don't eat cake every day either," I pointed out before carefully sticking a knife into my cake as close to the middle as I could. I sucked at cutting cakes. I just hoped I didn't suck as much at making them. "Why don't you take a seat," I proposed.

He obeyed and, closely examining my unsteady hand holding the knife, he taunted, "Be careful before you cut your arm off!"

"Shut up and eat," I muttered, half throwing a plate with a piece of the cake—successfully detached!—in front of him. I smiled though, and so did he. Maybe we would be able to get along after all.

Of course we would. We had for a lifetime. Even after the… incident, we'd still kept in touch as much as possible. Even though… I couldn't lie about it; we had grown apart, despite my efforts to avoid it. And now I had to repair that. This was the perfect opportunity.

But I didn't say anything. Neither did he. We just ate our cake in silence, swallowing back our words. It was good, I wasn't such a bad cook. But that didn't matter anymore, it didn't preoccupy me as much as it had before. In fact, I stopped tasting it after a few bites and finished it mechanically.

Finally, I dropped my spoon in frustration. "What the fuck, Bert!" He looked up, startled. "I haven't seen you in _months_ and all of a sudden you show up at my door, puke in my sink, pass out on my floor and eat my cake? And all you say is, _careful before you cut your arm off_?"

His expression saddened, and immediately I felt bad for snapping at him like that. "I'm sorry, Rachel. Really. I just… I had nowhere else to go." I remembered the faces of our parents the day he'd tried to come back home for the first time. It was only a few days after he'd been kicked out, but he'd hoped that it wasn't that bad, that he could be forgiven. But it _was_ that bad. No words had been said. Just the expression on their faces. Cold, hard, almost cruel. But also disappointed, sad, ashamed. Just the sight of that had made my brother turn around and run away, far away from the ones that had once been everything to him and who now rejected him.

He'd never come back. I knew our parents regretted it, I knew how much they'd wished to take it back every single day, but it was too late. And now here he was.

"You are the only one who still lives close enough for me to reach you," he continued on a more neutral tone. Indeed, my two older sisters had both moved out of the state and my younger brother still lived with my parents. "And right now… you're my only friend."

That was really touching. Was he trying to win me back? Or was he honest, maybe? "Wow, that's, um…" I searched for the best thing to reply, and all I could find was, "That sucks."

He snickered. "True." Then he looked down hesitantly before muttering, "So… you won't like, kick me out or anything?"

He was so used to it. My heart sank as I realised that. My parents had not been the last ones to look down on him and reject him. He'd been pushed around so much, it was obvious. It was inevitable.

"No," I said firmly. "You're welcome to stay for as long as you like." And I smiled as warmly as possible.

He seemed relieved enough. I was scared the silence would come back, so I got up promptly and decided on doing the dishes. But as I reached for his plate he quickly pulled back on it and snatched the one I was already holding. "I'll do it," he said, walking past me to the sink. "You've done enough."

I gulped. "Okay then… if you need me I'll be in the shower." And I escaped. _If you need me I'll be in the shower… _I repeated in my head disapprovingly. And what was he supposed to do if he needed me? Join me in my shower? Stupid figure of speech.

I took my shower as quickly as possible, impatient to talk to my brother again, or more like talk to my brother for _real_. I didn't even wait for the water to warm up before throwing myself under it, which cost me a tiny yelp. I moved so quickly I almost slipped twice, and made it out in less than five minutes. I think.

I tiptoed my way to my room where I exchanged the towel wrapped around my body for my cozy pyjamas. Then I retraced my steps all the way to the entrance of the bathroom, from where I could easily spy on the living room and the kitchen. I didn't see anything at first. I waited a few seconds during which I heard nothing, and then suddenly… no, it couldn't be. It was not possible that my brother would show such vulnerability in front of anyone. But then again, I heard it well. I heard my brother's faint sobs.

My knees weakened as I walked slowly up to the couch he was sitting on, the one on the far end of the room, which could not be seen from the hallway. He was hugging his knees, his face buried between them, shaken by his silent sobbing. He didn't seem to acknowledge my presence until I sat beside him and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. As soon as he felt the touch, he froze. The sobs ceased.

"That was fast," he muttered in a muffled voice thick with tears.

"Yeah," I whispered, "that was my intention." I didn't add anything, and he started shaking again. I couldn't take it anymore. I wrapped my arms around him carefully and held him tightly until his breathing calmed. I don't know how long it took, but I held on to my own tears every second; he didn't need to see that. And strangely, I felt happy, somehow. Because finally, since he'd appeared behind my door, we connected. We understood each other, without words.

And then, he slowly lifted his head and let go of his knees, so I took back my arms and settled for just staring at him. His eyes and nose were red, which was in every way normal, and a poorly concealed expression of deep sadness covered his whole face. He looked so miserable I could've burst in tears right then and there, but of course I kept calm.

"I fucked up, Roach. I really fucked up," he whispered. I already knew that. And I knew what would follow: a long speech about how unworthy he was, how he should never have been born, etcetera, etcetera. Or so I thought. For a moment he just stared in front of him, seeming terrified by some ghost who wasn't there. And then he whispered, "He's after me. He's gonna kill me." I frowned, my interest flaring suddenly. I didn't expect the conversation to take such a turn. "Not if I do it first though," he added with a bitter smile.

"Wait," I started, ignoring his last suicidal comment, "who's after you?"

He sighed. "It's actually quite a long story…" He paused. "Alright, it's not really a long story. It's just that… I stole some stuff from this guy and now he and his band of mighty outlaws are pissed off. And they're looking for me, and… and Kate." He seemed to choke on the name.

I raised my eyebrows. Kate. Wow, I had forgotten her. He'd told me about her on one of the rare visits I'd gotten from him—back in the days when I actually got visits from him. More than a year had passed since then, and besides what he told me then was visibly superficial, brief and not too detailed, so I didn't know much more then than I did now. I knew though, that Kate was something like his girlfriend and that they'd even lived together for a while—where, I couldn't imagine, but by the looks of him it couldn't have been a luxurious mansion.

"Wait, wait, wait…" I waved my hands in front of me speedily. "You stole _stuff_ from a _guy_? What stuff, and what guy?"

"Just… some dude from the streets, what does it matter?" He was avoiding my first question.

"What stuff, Bert?"

Suddenly, he seemed to get angry. "Well, what the fuck do you think? That I stole bubblegum from a fucking drug-dealer?"

"OK, I get it. Don't get angry now." I sighed. "Look, what makes you think he's gonna find you?"

He thought for a second. "You know, it's a pretty long story after all."

"Shoot."

He stared at his hands. "I guess it starts when I first met Kate, back in Orem. She was super-friendly and didn't run away from me like most people and we got to know each other and then… you know. Stuff happened. And she became my girlfriend." I had heard right. "But then I found out that she wasn't exactly single." I gasped. "No, no! It's not what you think. She was like, the whore of some famous drug-dealer, some middle-aged dude with a stupid beard. And I say "whore" because she had no pleasure being with him. He even beat her up and made her do stuff, you know… So when I found out about that, I walked right up to that guy and gave him a hell of a beating." The memory made him chuckle, but I must've looked quite freaked out because the sight of me turned his face serious again. "And then we stole some of his money and ran away. We drove all the way here, to Salt Lake City, and we rented an apartment. That's about when I started talking to you again. I'd missed that." He smiled, but my expression remained grave. I couldn't believe how much I didn't know. I had no idea he'd lived anywhere but the streets since the big fight. "But of course, nothing lasts forever, and eventually some other fat middle-aged dude with a stupid beard caught us, gave us a lecture about how irresponsible we were to have hurt his buddy and took all our fucking money—you know, the one we had, in our immaculate moderation, almost completely spent on drugs and booze. Yeah… I even received a few well-placed punches too," he remembered with a wince.

"How generous of him."

"Truly." I finally smiled, despite the sad turn of his story.

"And then…" I urged.

"And then me and Kate broke up. Sort of. I mean, we didn't mean it, we were just angry and we weren't thinking… but the thing is, we lost each other. Literally. I swear, I looked for her all over the city, but I just…" He bit his lip. "And the cocaine got the best of me again. I started losing my mind. I stole from the other drug-dealer, the same one who'd kicked us out of our apartment, who'd taken Kate away, if I can blame him. And he knows. He knows it's me. He's gonna go after her, Rachel, he's gonna use her to get to me…" He buried his face in his hands in despair, any trace of humor having vanished.

I tried to make sense of his story, but some parts seemed strangely unfortunate, and a little far-fetched, and I started wondering if he had all his mind.

I tried to reassure him, "Look, it can't be that bad, I mean I'm sure plenty of people steal from the guy all the time. And even if he really does want to get back at you, how would he even find you, or Kate?"

"Oh, he can find anyone. I doubt that's a problem for him." In the following silence, I could hear his heavy breathing. And then he whispered almost inaudibly, "I'm scared, Roach, I'm fuckin' scared." I rubbed my hands together. I really had no idea what to say, what to do. There was nothing I could do. "Sorry to put you in this position…" he muttered, looking up again.

I quickly looked for a solution, and the only one that came was, "Let's wait. If he wants to get you, he'll come to you. And if he wants to get Kate, he'll come to you _with_ Kate… hopefully alive." I barely heard the last part myself. "And then you can find them both at the same time." I smiled encouragingly but the despair on his face only seemed to intensify.

"Shit, now if he finds me, he'll find you! I just threw you right into my fucking mess." And there he went again, hiding his face in his hands and self-accusing himself of exorbitant crimes.

"Aw c'mon! This guy's not an FBI agent! And he's not gonna kill every single person you've ever talked to because you stole a little cocaine." I put my hand on his shoulder and softened my voice. "Look, it'll be OK. Just… just go to bed, huh? Maybe take a shower too, I'm sure you need it."

He laughed. "No doubt."

"You're OK on the couch?"

"Yeah, totally. I've slept in much worse places, trust me."

I smiled sadly and got up. "I'll just go get you a pillow and a blanket, maybe some clothes too… damn, I only have girl clothes."

"Aw, that's OK. I can learn to walk in stilettos if I have to. Not sure about the G-strings though."

I laughed. "Shut the fuck up!"

As I walked away, I heard him shout, "I prefer a pink dress over a blue one for sleeping, if you don't mind!" but I ignored him. Still, I let a little smile grow on my lips. Because as much as the situation sucked, I still had something now than I hadn't had a few hours earlier.

I had gotten my little brother back.


	2. Chapter 2

2 Rachel.

The next morning, I woke up early. Six thirty. It was a Sunday so I had the day to myself, but I didn't feel like sleeping any longer. Oh well, I had gone to bed early the night before.

I moved as silently as possible as to not wake my brother, but when I reached my strategic spying corner, the first thing I saw was him sitting on the kitchen table, his clean shiny blond hair falling in waves over his shoulders, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. My throat reacted immediately, stinging and itching painfully. I hated the smell of cigarettes.

"Not in the house!" I squeaked, making him jump. Before he could react, I grabbed the cigarette between my thumb and my index and dropped it on the floor before crushing it with my slipper.

He opened his mouth in shock and stared at me. I expected an apology or some stupid joke about me not being able to stop him from doing what he wants, but all I got was, "Fine." His voice was cold, so was his expression.

I frowned in suspicion. "Everything OK?"

"Yeah, sure. Everything's _perfectly_ fine." The sarcasm was almost as slap in the face. He didn't even bother to look at me.

"Um, hey, you know I could kick you out of here anytime, so how 'bout you lose the attitude."

"You know what?" He turned to me again and got down from the table, only to stretch his legs and emphasize the few inches he outgrew me by. "Go ahead." And he walked past me and straight to the front door that he slammed behind him.

"But I didn't say anything…" I muttered silently to the wall in front of me. "Bert…" Of course, it was useless. He was furiously walking away from me now, and for what? I had no idea. I thought we'd left off at a pretty friendly note last night, so why did he suddenly hate me?

Nah, he didn't hate me, he was just going outside for a smoke, that was all.

No. That wasn't true. Even if he would smoke—definitely would happen—he wouldn't just be gone for five minutes. Oh no, he wouldn't be back too soon. Suddenly, I was scared to lose him again.

I felt the loneliness weight on me like it did too often these days. The walls closing in. That strange shadow of claustrophobia coming back. Suddenly, I felt like curling up in a ball and yelling until my already painful throat disallowed me to. But I knew it was bad, and that the neighbors had already complained about it in the past and that I could up get kicked out of the apartment. No, I needed my other remedy. The healthier one.

I just hoped he wouldn't be angry too.

I half jumped on my phone and dialed the number I knew by heart with a determined rage. He answered in a sleepy voice after only two rings.

"Hello?"

"Quinn?" I gasped.

"Nope, it's the Wizard of Oz. Went into epileptic shock again, Rachel?"

I smiled. Gosh, I had missed him. "I'm not an epileptic, Quinn."

"Oh, yeah? What was it then? You're bipolar? Amnesic? Addicted to cheese puffs?"

I chuckled. "Definitely the last one. But the two others wouldn't be impossible either…"

There was a momentary silence, and he finally said, "OK Chelly, you didn't wake me up at six in the morning to tell me you're crazy. I hope. What's wrong?"

I sighed. "My brother's here."

"Which one?" he immediately asked.

"The fugitive. Robert."

"Oh, the crazy crack kid who looks like Kurt Cobain?"

I couldn't have described him better. "Yeah. Him."

"What does he want?"

"Apparently, some bloodthirsty drug-dealer's after him and his girlfriend and he's freaking out. Oh, and he's totally homeless."

"Really? The dude has a girlfriend? She's probably blind."

I laughed out loud this time. I didn't feel like defending my brother even for a second. "No doubt! But what about the dealer?"

"Aw, don't worry. Whatever he did, I'm sure it's no biggie. He's just using that as an excuse for invading your home. He probably didn't even do anything and it's all just a big lie." I stopped agreeing with him there. I had seen my brother's face the night before—when he wasn't an asshole—and it had been honest. He was really scared. But I didn't say anything. "So, I don't suppose you're gonna let me get some more sleep, eh?" Quinn guessed.

"Sorry. You're my slave now."

"It's alright… I guess I'll survive…" The overdone martyrdom in his voice made me smile again. Everything about him made me smile. "Even if I have a huge gig tonight," he continued, "I'm sure I won't pass out on the stage due to my significant lack of sleep…"

"Aw, now you're making me feel bad." Total lie.

"Hey, I'm just kidding. You know I love it when you call me in the middle of the night, because even if I'm having the sweetest dream, the sound of your voice is always sweeter…"

I felt my fingers weaken. Quinn wasn't at all my boyfriend, but sometimes I felt like he surpassed his role as a best friend with little comments or gestures just like that. Like the roses that had magically appeared in front of my door every day for a whole month and which he had "accidentally" mentioned once, thus giving himself away. And to think that he probably traveled fifty miles from Orem to lay each rose right on that spot, just because the mailbox sucked too much—unless he'd talked the mailman into doing it.

But why? Was he in love with me? Or was he just playing with me? Maybe he was undecided, like I was. But why didn't he ever talk to me about it, seriously?

We talked about everything and nothing for the next couple of hours, barely mentioning either love or Bert, which was probably good for me. He helped me clear my mind and see the good side of life, smile. Really, I couldn't imagine any drug that could be better than him. We talked about his band—his only occupation apart from his day-job at Starbucks—and the messy new songs they'd finally managed to coordinate as well as their terrible singer.

"Really, sometimes I just wanna hit him in the face with my guitar. But then I think, "What would we do without him?" A band with no frontman is like a P&J sandwich with no bread. Nobody wants to eat peanut butter and jelly on spoons."

"Are you kidding? I always do that."

"Yeah but, Chelly, you're weird. We've already figured that out." I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see me. "Anyway, it's almost nine now, if you haven't noticed." No, I hadn't noticed. Time seemed to sprint whenever I talked to Quinn. "I have to get to work."

"On a Sunday?"

"People still need coffee. Sorry." It was a sincere apology.

"Please. You have nothing to be sorry about. Thank you for not hanging up on me."

"What? How could I ever do that? Chelly, I'd be too scared your OCD would get the best of you."

"I don't have… ugh. Do you even know what OCD means?"

"Of course I do! I gotta go now though, so… bye."

"Bye. Take care." _Click._ And just like that, he was gone again. I felt my throat tighten, but apart from that I was OK. Maybe he was right. Maybe I _was_ crazy. Maybe we were all just a bunch of crazies in my family.

And then I heard the door open noisily. And suddenly, I felt annoyed. Not relieved, not sorry, but very annoyed. How could he dare walk away like that and then come back like he was the king of the house? He could've at least _knocked_.

I walked furiously to the entrance to face him and started, "Seriously, Bert—"

"Rachel!" he interrupted in a trembling voice. He looked surprised, like he hadn't expected me to be there. And he looked… terrified. My annoyance vanished. "Rachel, oh God!" He seemed to remember the door and turned to close it quickly before locking both bolts with a disturbing vigor. And then he leaned against it and slowly slid down to a sitting position, taking his head between his stiff hands—blocking his ears. "Make them go away please! Please… Please just make them go away…" His voice lost its volume with each word. "Please, please, please, oh God, please…" He muttered on almost inaudibly while I stared in horror. His words merged into a soft whine as he squeezed his eyes shut and started rocking himself back and forth rapidly.

I scanned him quickly in order to try to figure out what exactly had happened to him, but everything was intact. The oversized joggings and the old gray sweatshirt I had found for him looked fine, so did the rest of him—even those ugly old fingerless gloves that hid his hands. He looked fine, physically. But mentally was a whole other story.

The whining became louder and the rocking more violent. The terrible sounds that escaped his lips, full of fear and pain, chilled me to the bone. Louder and louder. Pretty soon, I couldn't take it anymore. It was like he was yelling in my ears. It was too much!

"Stop! Stop, goddam it!" I snapped. "Bert, look at me!" I crouched next to him and grabbed both his wrists that I pulled away from his head, forcing him to unblock his ears. He stared at me, startled.

And in the silence, I suddenly understood. Why he'd been so angry in the morning, why he was acting like this now. It was truly frightening to see how much effect it had but there was no doubt. It was the drugs. The craving was driving him crazy. I realised sadly that this feeling was probably familiar to him. How many times had he run out of money? How many times had he fallen under the grip of the terrible need for the little white powder?

And then, out of nowhere, I thought of my other little brother, Joey, who still lived with our parents. He looked a lot like Bert—or anyway, Bert _before_, when he still had glasses and a nerdy haircut—and every time I looked at him I felt nostalgic. He was happy, at least. I hoped it would last. I hoped the only resemblance between him and Bert was physical. And deep down I knew I had nothing to worry about. Joey was a good boy. He would never end up in the streets, homeless, cold, alone. His face would never twist under the pain of addiction, of terror and loneliness, of hunger and despair. And he would never need me.

"Hey," I whispered as softly as possible. "It's OK, there's no one here. Just me. Just me." Slowly, his hands loosened, his face relaxed, his pupils contracted. He closed his eyes and sighed almost in relief, like he'd just overcome a great challenge. It must've felt like that.

And then, without moving, he whispered, "I saw him Rachel. I saw him with my own eyes."

It took me a few seconds to focus on his words. "You saw… who?"

"_Him!_" His eyes opened wide with apprehension. Their electric blue caught my attention once again. "The dealer! The only guy who's ever given me the creeps, who else?"

"Alright, alright." I almost felt annoyed again before remembering that there was a good reason for his abruptness. "Are you sure it was him?"

"Yes, yes! He—he looked at me." I raised my eyebrows. "He saw me. Definitely. Just as I saw him. And he… told me that—that he was gonna…" His eyes lost their focus then and he stared into nothing.

"What? He was gonna what?" I urged.

His eyes focused on me again and he groaned in frustration. "I'm not sure… It was… It was terrible. He wants revenge. He wants to kill me! And Kate too!" And suddenly it was he who grabbed my wrists, gripping so tightly it hurt. "He's a maniac, Rachel! He's fucking crazy!"

I felt a bit of his fear then. Maybe this guy really _was_ a menace. Maybe I really should be worried about him…

But no. Something wasn't right. Just by the way he looked at me, the way he talked about that guy, it was like he was describing himself. Mostly the "fucking crazy" part. In that moment my brother really looked fucking crazy. Paranoid. I let out a short gasp.

It was all in his head.

I clicked my tongue and slowly said, "Listen, that wasn't real. You imagined that—"

"No!" He frowned. "No, no! It was real! He was there, I swear!"

"No, Bert. He wasn't." I got back up slowly and he let his hands fall back in his lap. "Sorry." And I left without looking back. I couldn't anymore. I couldn't help him. I went straight to my room, opened a book and tried to relax, to forget. As much as I could.

* * *

The phone pulled me out of my concentration a few hours later. That concentration I had worked so hard on mastering…

"Hello?" I growled, determined to show whoever had bothered me that I did not want to be bothered.

"Hey, Chelly. You sound bummed."

"Quinn!" My voice lost all trace of animosity. "Man, you'll never guess what happened this morning."

"You won the lottery and now you're bathing under the sun in the Philippines?"

"Huh? No! I wish. No, actually it's a bad thing."

"Aw, darn. Well, I have good news, if you want to feel better."

"You bet I do. C'mon, tell me before I burst into tears. And it better be _actual_ good news this time, Quinn, so don't talk to me about how you just had the best burger in your life."

He laughed. "Hey, I really believe that's great news! But, um, no, this time it's justified." He paused. I waited. "I love the suspense." I gasped and yelled at him to tell me, and he chuckled until finally, I very suddenly burst into tears. Real tears of sadness, something that he wasn't expecting. He stopped laughing and I could picture his face becoming grave. "Hey, Chelly, you alright?"

"No. I mean, yes! Ugh… I just…" I blabbered excuses through my uncontrolled tears, underlined by loud sobs. Really, the first thing I would do after putting down this phone would be going to a mental hospital. It wasn't normal to act like someone had died at any random moment.

"Alright, alright! Don't cry!" Quinn urged in a panicky voice. "Sheesh. The good news is just that we're playing a gig tonight in Salt Lake, and I thought you'd like to come. You know, it's a rare opportunity to play in the big city, so close to you…"

"Yeah, I know, I know." I sighed and calmed down a little. It really was good news. I smiled. "Count me in." I sounded strangled. "Where and when?"

He gave me the time and coordinates while I slowly comprehended how good his news was. I would finally be able to see him again, my best friend! It had been weeks since I hadn't touched him, talked to him face to face or seen his adorable smile. And suddenly, I felt happy.

"Quinn…" I interrupted, only then realising that he was still talking.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for existing."

He let out a brisk laugh and answered unsurely, "You're welcome, I guess."

There followed one of those awkward silences while we both cleared our throats and finally, he muttered a sad goodbye and hung up before I could answer. I didn't care though. Because tonight at eight, I would finally be able to give him a good hug once again.

I realised then that I hadn't told him my bad news, which finally reminded me that I had to get out of my room—aka "secret hideout"—before my brother ended up hanging himself.

As soon as I opened the door, I almost jumped. Because everything was blurry, the air was full of something thick and white… Of course.

"Do you plan on suffocating every person in this building!" I yelled while my throat tightened with pain. I walked through the smoke up to the living room, wondering how the hell I hadn't smelled it from my room. When I reached the living room, I couldn't keep from gasping again—which only made me cough—because I barely recognised the place. Everything had been pushed off the shelves and the coffee table, all the furniture—as little as there was—had been moved and there were red beads all over the floor. From that vase full of glass beads my aunt had given me on my birthday—probably to get rid of it—and which I had not found a better place for except the top shelf of the library. I guessed the vase was doomed.

And there, right in the middle of that mess, sat my brother, cross legged. As if nothing had happened. Smoking. "Hey, Roach," he greeted without a glance toward me.

My fists clenched. I tried taking a deep breath to calm myself down, but when my lungs protested and I coughed again, I didn't feel at all calmer. I took a few steps and stood right in front of him, placing my hands on my hips. He looked up innocently. "OK, you filthy little brat," I started, "what the fuck do you think you're doing? So what, now that you're a cocaine addict you think you can just walk in here and take the walls down!" The last word was practically a screech.

He waited patiently to see if I was done and answered in an outrageous calm, "I was angry. I had to let off some steam." He took a long puff of his cigarette before looking back at me expectantly.

I stared at him in disbelief. "By destroying everything? You could've at least spared the vase with the beads, now Aunt Molly will be angry!"

"Who cares? She's crazy anyway." He took another puff. "Aren't we all?"

I blinked. "Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth." And then I remembered that I was supposed to be angry. I frowned and continued more severely, "But that's not an excuse for this! What am I gonna do now!" His cigarette annoyed me, as well as his apathy. "Will you just…" I bent over and grabbed the little white tube like I had that morning, but this time he grabbed it too, holding on to it. I yanked at it and suddenly it broke between my fingers, burning so fast that I didn't have time to think about letting go before the little flame reached my fingers. I yelped and my fingers opened on their own, but the pain lasted and I groaned. "Now look what you've done!"

"Hey, I didn't do anything. You're the one who—"

"Shut up!" The neighbors were sure to have heard me. "Shut up and get out of here! Now! And don't come back!" The anger boiled up to the point where I felt like hitting him. Hard enough that he'd remember. I controlled myself though.

Slowly, like he was determined to annoy me as much as possible, he got up and walked up to the front door. Only then did a hint of regret show on his face, but I didn't care anymore. "I'm sorry, Roach," he said flatly.

I didn't feel the sorrow, to be honest. "Get out."

He didn't add anything. Three seconds later, I was alone. Just me, the pain in my fingers, the thick smoke, and a hell of a mess to clean up.


	3. Chapter 3

3 Rachel.

I stopped in front of a small door covered in neon lights. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused hard to remember the address Quinn had given me. I had written it down but forgotten the note on my end table, so I couldn't be sure it was the right place.

But hey, I had reason to think it was the right place. I had already been there once, the last time Dumb Luck—Quinn's band—had played there. The owner of the place must've liked them and had called them back.

Without hesitating any more, I pushed the door open. As soon as I entered, the too-familiar smell of cigarettes invaded my nose again. Damn, and I had just managed to get rid of it. It smelled like alcohol too, obviously. Strobe lights lit up the huge room filled with people. Laughing, drinking, dancing, even fighting. Loud—earsplitting—music was flying out of the huge speakers hanging from the ceiling. My head already started aching. At least it wasn't a strip club.

The stage was still empty. I was early. But I didn't feel like waiting, I wanted to see Quinn _now_. I made my way through the crowd of drunk people—and non-drunk people who acted like they were drunk—until I finally reached the stage. I was already sweating, the air was suffocating. I climbed on the stage despite the thug in the black suit who eyed me queerly and walked around the cheap curtain as quickly as possible, hoping he didn't feel like running after me. I was relieved to know that no one was following me, but the relief was quickly swept away when my path was blocked by another thug in a black suit. Man, security sure was tight in there.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?" he asked, detaching each syllable as if I was retarded. Oh, he was probably trying to make sure I understood him even if I was dead drunk.

But I wasn't. "I'm just going to see my friend, sir," I answered politely. "He's in a band that's gonna play tonight. Maybe you know him, Quinn Allman?"

The thug chuckled through his cropped—horrible—beard and put a filthy hand on the small of my back, trying to lead me away from the backstage corridor. "Look, you're gonna see your friend in a few minutes, be patient."

"No!" I turned abruptly and slapped his hand. Taking advantage of his momentary astonishment, I sprinted past him toward the small white door which bared the name of "backstage". Behind that door waited my best friend, my guardian angel. An exorbitant joy filled me as I reached for the handle, but my hand was suddenly pulled back by a bigger and uglier one, and the door remained closed. "No!" I yelled again. I started yanking at the hands that now held tightly both of mine, kicking the air in front of me and yelling more. I must've looked mentally ill.

"Calm down, young lady!" the irritating voice ordered.

"NO! Let me _go_!" I insisted. Of course, he didn't obey.

Suddenly, the white door flung open, nearly hitting me in the face, and behind it stood the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Well, at least it felt like that then.

"Chelly!" He smiled his childish—and perfect—smile, his soft brown eyes lighting up with excitement. His bleached hair fell graciously on his forehead and his tight white t-shirt accentuated his perfect shape. Wow, I had forgotten how sexy he was. I think my mouth popped open. "Let her go, Bruce," he said then, turning to the man behind me.

The thug finally let go of my hands with a groan. As soon as I was free, I stopped day-dreaming about Quinn's sexiness and threw my arms around his neck, squeezing him as hard as I could. He hugged me back immediately, without flinching—he was used to my desperate hugs. My eyes watered and I sniffed loudly, which only made him tighten his grip even more.

"Thanks for freeing me from horrible old Bruce," I muttered against his shoulder after a few seconds.

"I don't even know if his name is really Bruce."

I let out a brisk laugh. "Thanks anyways." And we stood there for a very long time, until someone cleared their throat noisily and I remembered that we weren't alone.

"We're gonna be late," a rough voice warned and I unwillingly let go of Quinn.

"Alright Jepha," Quinn muttered, turning towards the guy who had talked, the singer. He was tall and looked older than the others, even though he probably wasn't by much. He had two piercings on each side of his lower lip, a whole bunch of tattoos, and a sullen expression. Still, he looked like a pretty cool guy.

Bruce reappeared then and told the guys that it was time. Quinn, Jeph—aka Jepha, and that was about all I knew about him—and the two others made their way to the stage, having already been presented. They were greeted with a fair round of applause and a lot of yelling. And maybe a few bottles of beer—hopefully full of _beer_ and not… other things.

They played a couple of songs while I watched from the side of the stage, wondering what proportion of the crowd actually remembered the name of the band—which Jeph didn't even bother to repeat—until people started getting disinterested. So then Quinn took off his shirt and a new crowd, consisting mostly of harebrained girls, formed around them. I felt a hint of jealousy when he smiled at them, but it was a different smile, a less honest one. Not the one he reserved for me.

And then another dozen minutes passed and finally one of the girls managed to get past Bruce and his acolytes and climb on the stage where she attacked Quinn, followed by another half-a-dozen girls, and that put an end to the song and pretty much the whole gig. Oh well, I was starting to get sick of Jeph's pitchy voice anyway—even though it did have a sort of soothing tone.

The guys finally managed to escape and ran straight to me—past me, actually, and past the white door which I barely had time to go through myself before they slammed it and locked it. Jeph and the drummer slumped down on the couch, the bassist sat on the ground in a corner and Quinn stayed next to me, leaning against the door.

"And yet another success," Jeph said bitterly. "Really, we deserve a medal."

Quinn sighed deeply.

"Oh, well," the drummer—what was his name again?—said, "at least they liked us."

"Yeah, you guys were awesome," I praised a little too enthusiastically. They stared at me in disbelief. "But I guess those bitches prefer Quinn's abs," I added, thus gaining a bit of their sympathy. Sure, I wasn't a complete stranger among them, but I wasn't really a friend either, except for Quinn.

"So…" Jeph started after a long silence, "who wants to get drunk?"

The guys cheered at the proposition and I smiled a bit disapprovingly. But hey, what the hell did I expect? Definitely not that they'd go home and play chess.

"Alright, have fun," I said, turning to leave—sadly, but still—when Quinn suddenly grabbed my arm.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Uh… home?"

"Oh no, you don't! You're staying here and you're partying with us!"

I grimaced. "I really can't… You know I got school tomorrow… And I'm not really that kind of person…"

"Aw c'mon!" he insisted, pulling me against him roughly. "You think I don't know what kind of person you are? I've known you for centuries, Chelly! But why don't you at least give it a try, for once? Have some fun!"

I sighed and tried pushing him away, but he held on to me and I gave up. He was still shirtless, I noticed. And gosh, was he sexy!

Oh, maybe I would stay just this once… "Alright," I muttered.

"Yes!" And suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, he gave me a long and intense kiss, to which I answered despite myself before snapping out of it and pushing him away with a new strength.

"Quinn!" I gasped, staring at him in horror. "What the fuck!"

He seemed confused. "What? I thought you wanted this…"

"What? I don't…" But I stopped short. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. Pushed by the desire to put an end to the awkwardness, I said, "You know what? Let's just get drunk already."

He smiled, and that's the last thing I remember clearly.

I gulped down glass after glass of whatever was given me, from sweet cocktails to bitter shots of whisky. Slowly, my mood improved and I started laughing too, even though I didn't always understand the jokes—or whether they were jokes or not. The alcohol started tasting better, and I found myself requesting for more. The guys were awesome and we all suddenly became BFF's, telling each other inside jokes we didn't even know. Oh, and I had no idea who was paying for all the drinks.

As the walls started wobbling, I was less and less conscious of what I was doing. I might've kissed Quinn a few more times—and who knows who else! I might've smoked something weird too, but I couldn't be sure that it wasn't just a cigarette. I had more and more trouble focusing on my thoughts and pretty soon everything became a big blur. A big and happy blur. I was ecstatic and depressed at once, hyper and exhausted. I think I realised at some point that I sure as hell wasn't used to being drunk, and that I was completely wasted, but I guess it didn't bother me so much.

I stopped noticing when people were talking to me, so when Quinn—I think it was him—pulled me up from the couch—I think it was a couch—and told me something that sounded important but was too complicated for me to comprehend, I got pretty confused.

"What…?" I giggled at my own question like it was the best joke in the world.

"I said…" I focused really hard. "…we should take you home!" The last word made my giggling stop. _Home. _Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about that.

My legs suddenly left the ground and I panicked for a second before understanding what was happening to me. Quinn had lifted me off the ground and was now carrying me through the near-empty club. I had laid my head on his chest despite myself, without even realising. I started kicking my legs in protest. "No! I wanna…" I lost my train of thought for a second. "Uh… I wanna walk!" I remembered.

"Chelly, you can't even formulate a sentence."

My mind was too slow to process that long word. "Huh?"

Quinn sighed. And then I felt a whiff of cold air hit my face and I jumped. Oh wait, I was outside. The clean air seemed to help me turn my gears a little and finally decided on trying again, "Quinn, please put me down."

"Oh my, she remembers my name! You're too drunk, Chelly, sorry."

I groaned. That wasn't fair! He was drunk too! "Oh please!" Frustrated, I pushed him away from me with both my arms, understanding too late that that would just make me fall. He didn't have time to catch me and I threw my hands in front of me just in time to hit the ground—it was a miracle that I still had that reflex.

I didn't feel the pain at first. And then my hands stared burning and I just had the time to glance at the blood that gushed out of my right palm before being lifted off the ground.

"Oh gosh, Chelly are you alright?" He examined me and winced at the sight of my hands. I didn't look. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Aw, what happened to the poor little girl?" a taunting male voice suddenly asked.

Quinn immediately wrapped his arms around me protectively. "None of your goddamn business."

The guy replied, but I stopped listening. All I could think about was Quinn… Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. The way he held me, the way he kissed me…

And my hands. So bloody. So red. I had probably fallen on a broken bottle or something, because they were more than just scraped. I felt sick.

Quinn tightened his grip around me, triggered by some menace I was too tired to try to understand. Oh, Quinn… _My hands._ His warmth enveloped me. _The blood stained my shirt._ I felt safe. _I felt sick._

My head started spinning. I felt my legs give in.

And suddenly, I strange touch brought the strength back to my legs like an electric shock. Who could _dare_? I turned my head swiftly and caught a sight I would've gladly given up. The brute who had _slapped my butt_. He was fat, ugly, dirty, had yellow teeth and a sadistic smile. Ugh.

Behind him stood another bunch of gorillas just like him. They were talking—arguing?—with someone familiar… Jeph! What the…

And then, out of nowhere, one of the brutes punched Jeph in the face and put him down. I gasped. The one who had touched me moved to block my view. "You don't need to see that, honey. You see, your friend and my friend just had a little argument…"

That did it. It was too much. Quinn, the blood, Jeph being hit, the indiscreet gorilla, the alcohol, the alcohol, _the alcohol_! I wrenched myself from Quinn's grip and, with only one thought in mind—to escape—I sprinted in the other direction. I felt the air hit my face so deliciously, my legs gaining strength. For a second, I even was able to think more clearly.

And then everything stopped. There was no external trigger, my brain just stopped working on its own. My thoughts mixed together again. My legs ceased to exist all of a sudden and I knew what would happen next. I would hurt my hands again. Or, maybe I wouldn't even bother to throw them in front of me and I would fall on my head. Or I would end up in the middle of the street and get run over by a car. Or Snow White's little birds would catch me and put me back on my feet.

I considered every possibility in a fraction of a second. But what really happened, I didn't see coming.

I was caught. Not by a handful of little animated birds. But by a pair of welcoming arms. Warm, soft—the feel of my old gray hoodie—and impregnated with the smell of cigarettes. So familiar.

He sighed disapprovingly. "What have you done, Roach?" He tried to put me on my feet gently, but I resisted. I refused to make my legs work again. I held on to him like my life depended on it. He gave up and hugged me back instead.

I didn't understand. How was he here? Why was he here? Was he even real or was I just going nuts?

"Bert…"

"I'm here. It's alright." Yes, he was real. He had come back once again. Because I needed him.

"I'm sorry…" I whispered, wondering if he could hear me.

"Me too."

And that's when I passed out.

_I think it's gonna be alright now,_

_I think it's gonna be OK,_

_Just close your eyes,_

'_Cause we are only sparks,_

_But together burning bright_


	4. Chapter 4

4 Rachel.

_I think it's gonna be alright now,_

_I think it's gonna be OK,_

_Just close your eyes,_

'_Cause we are only sparks,_

_But together burning bright_

I woke up some time later—that's about as precise as I could be—with a huge headache. It took me a second to remember my name, during which I remembered the song that still echoed in my mind. It was an old lullaby my mother used to sing to my siblings and me every night when we were young. She would start by saying, "I think…" and we would ask her, "What do you think, mommy?"—already knowing the answer—and then she would start singing.

She had a clear beautiful voice that I came to miss eventually. Even when I was fourteen, she would still sing for Joey who was nine. She had stopped at some point, but I would ask her to sing it for me once in a while because I loved it so much. And I wasn't the only one. I found that out the day Bert told me that he wanted it to be the last thing he heard before dying—which had then resulted in me panicking every time he would happen to hear it.

Suddenly, a flow of memories flooded my mind and interrupted my train of thought and I gasped, startled by all the things I that came back to me. How my brother had come to my apartment the night before, taking me completely by surprise. How we'd fought for the first time in the morning and he'd left, and then he'd come back. How I had talked to Quinn. How I'd fought with my brother the second time and he'd left again. How I had gone to Dumb Luck's gig and gotten drunk. How I had run away…

The last part was particularly blurry and I had trouble distinguishing what was true from what I was imagining. Had I really kissed Quinn? Had I really fallen and cut my hands? Had I really run into Bert…?

As the questions spun around my head, I painstakingly sat up and looked around me. I was pretty sure that I was in my room, in my apartment. The same yellow walls, the same plain brown and white bed. Yep, it was just as ugly.

And then I felt the pain in my hands. I stopped supporting myself on them and took a look at the damage. Both my hands were carefully bandaged so I couldn't see much. The white was stained red in many places though, that I could see, and from there I could deduct that it was pretty bad. At least my fingers were OK.

I finally decided to get up and out of the room. I would find out exactly what had happened. My head throbbed with pain and I felt dizzy, but I ignored it. I was too curious to lie back down.

I opened the door as silently as possible—which means not too silently because it squeaked like hell—and walked quietly through the hallway over to my spying corner. My eyes refused to focus, but I could hear very clearly two voices. Chatting. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying—either because they weren't very loud or because of the buzzing in my ears—but it sounded pretty friendly.

Suddenly, they stopped. And then I heard the first sentence that I understood. "Dude, I think she's awake…" I took a panicky step back as soon as it clicked in my head that they had spotted me. Unfortunately, I lost my balance and landed right on my injured right hand, which burned in response. I yelped, tears filled my eyes. Two words reached my ears at the same time.

"Roach!"

"Chelly!"

Despite the pain, I took a second to frown at my stupid nicknames. Then, four arms pulled me off the ground with such ease I could've been as light as a feather.

"You OK?"

"You alright?"

I couldn't be sure who had said what. "I'm fine, I'm fine…" I muttered, even though it was a lie. I didn't feel fine at all. I felt tired, dizzy, sick, and extremely grumpy. But I supposed it was normal.

The questions came back as I stared at their worried expressions. _Was what I remembered real?_ It seemed like it. I broke the silence, "Can someone please tell me what the fuck happened?"

For a moment they stared at me like I had just asked what colour was the sky. "Uh, you were startled and fell on your hand?" Bert tried. I blinked.

"No!" Quinn understood before I could reply. He smiled and continued, "She meant before that!"

"Yeah," I said, "Before I woke up in my room with no memory of how I got there… Not what happened two seconds ago!" I laughed a little too hysterically.

"Oh… right." Bert seemed as lost as me.

"Well, we got drunk together," Quinn started, putting an end to the awkwardness. "Do you remember that?" I might've blushed as I remembered something else that happened right before that, but I didn't answer. He took that as a "yes." "Well, at some point you had a little too much… And you were _completely_ wasted. Actually it was quite funny. You talked a lot." He chuckled and I blushed again. What had I said? "Anyway, we decided it was time to go home so I carried you outside. That's when you fell…" He cleared his throat and pointed my hands. That was quite embarrassing as well. "Anyway, some assholes who held a grudge against Jepha caught up with us and I think they scared you away…" He waited for a confirmation.

"Yeah. They were part of the reason I took off." Wow, I remembered. I actually remembered with a troubling intensity the senseless fear and the sickening confusion that I had felt in that moment. Which sucked. "And then…"

Quinn shrugged. "You know, you ran into this loser." He pointed Bert with his thumb. At first I was vexed by his rudeness, before understanding that he was actually being friendly.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and focused on my questions again. "But how? How did you find me?" I asked my brother.

"With a lot of determination." He snickered and Quinn smiled.

I suddenly felt annoyed by their complicity. "Would you care to develop?"

"Well, after you kicked me out, I went through hell again," he said matter-of-factly. I felt a twinge of guilt. "But you know, by now it's practically home. Anyway, I decided I would come back and annoy you a little more, even if it was the second time you kicked me out. Don't worry though, you're not the first." He smiled bitterly. I felt more and more like the bad guy. "So I went back to the apartment but you weren't there. And you know what a patient person I am; I waited about twenty seconds before convincing myself that you would never come back and I would have to wait for all of eternity. But…" he paused for suspense, "I then remembered that I had found a key while demolishing your living room, along with an old bus ticket and a bunch of quarters, and that it was now in my pocket."

My eyes widened. "You _stole_ my spare key!"

"I just borrowed it! Besides, it turned out to be pretty useful."

I was too curious to scold him. "OK, but how did you find me?"

"You know… with my clairvoyance."

_Argh!_ I grabbed him arms roughly as if I wanted to shake him. "_How?_"

He chuckled, a little frightened. "Eesh, loosen up, Roach!" I didn't move. "You left a note with the address and time. Almost as you _wanted_ me to find you!" My face went blank and I let go him. Of course. The note I had left for myself, and which I had forgotten to bring with me when I'd really needed it to find the club.

"It wasn't for you," I said harshly. "It was just so I wouldn't forget."

A tiny wave of disappointment crossed his face and then his usual smile came back. Sweet, subdued, and slightly forced. "Oh well, I still found you. And you can't say you regret it!"

He was right. I couldn't. I sighed. Then I passed on to the next question, "What time is it?"

"Five," Quinn answered immediately, as if he was expecting the question.

It took me a second to grasp the meaning of that. "Shit." And then an unusual worry knotted my stomach. "Monday, right?"

The guys snickered. "No," Bert said, "Wednesday." I gasped in horror. Something in my expression made him take it back. "I'm just kidding! Breathe!"

I groaned angrily. "It's not funny, Bert! I have a life, you know! School and stuff. But I guess you wouldn't understand."

His smile vanished. "No, you're right. I don't."

A shrill ringing noise filled the room before I could feel bad again. Quinn instinctively reached for his rather noisy cellphone in the back pocket of his jeans. It ringed again. Too loud.

"Do you want to wake the neighbours every time your phone rings?" I asked tauntingly.

"I need it to ring loud enough to wake me up when you call me at five in the morning—I'm a pretty heavy sleeper." And he answered the phone to keep me from replying. I hadn't intended to though, his remark having knocked down all my confidence, filling me with a new guilt to crown the one I already felt for being rude to my brother.

I was still feeling bad when his face suddenly lost all its cool—and part of its blood. "Branden, slow down!" he shouted into the phone, failing to compose himself. "Tell me every detail." For an endless minute we held our breath while Quinn looked more and more worried, his expression turning every second into something like an hour. "OK…" he finally whispered in a shaky voice. "We're screwed then, I get it." And he hung up without waiting for an answer.

I patiently stared at him, hoping he would decide to explain soon. But instead he just shouted, "Shit!" and punched the air in front of him with a startling aggressiveness. "Shit, shit, shit!" He passed his hands through his hair helplessly.

"What's wrong?" Bert finally asked. I thanked him mentally.

"Uh… Jeph had an accident."

I gasped. "Oh, my God! Is he alright!"

He choked a short laugh, trying to cover the despair that filled his expression. "Don't worry Chelly, he's… fine." He cleared his throat pointlessly. "OK, not really. He's in a fucking _coma_." He paused again to let us absorb the shock—even though I couldn't imagine why Bert would give a fuck. "It was the night after the show. He was drunk as hell, of course, and he was driving. Ashton and Branden were there too, but they're fine." Ashton and Branden. The bassist and the drummer. Now I remembered their names. "They just… ran into a tree. That's what Branden told me."

"And he wasn't wearing his seatbelt," I guessed.

"Oh no, he was! Thank God! I guess that's probably why he wasn't thrown through the windshield…"

That thought scared me all of a sudden. I took his hand to reassure him, and maybe reassure myself a little too.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm sure he'll be just fine."

He tried to accept that. But hell, it was just a superficial encouragement. "Branden told me," he started, "that the doctors say he might stay in la la land for _weeks_ now." The worry on his face intensified again as he repeated the news. "And who knows how long he'll need after that to recover! What if he loses his memory! What if he has to re-learn English! What if…" He sighed, out of ideas. "We won't be able to play shows anymore. We are so fucked."

"Aw c'mon… It's just a few weeks," I tried again. "You'll see, he'll be absolutely fine after that and you'll be able to start playing again."

He shook his head. "No, you don't understand. Even if everything goes well, people will lose interest in us. They will _forget_ us. We already have stuff planned and they'll lose their trust in us if we don't show!" Oh. I hadn't thought of that, to be honest. "Not to mention the cost of all this! Where the fuck are we gonna get money for the hospital?"

I frowned. "Well… you know. Insurance. And he's got parents right?"

He sighed in frustration as if my optimism bothered him. "Look, I don't know… just never mind the money. But what I _do_ know is that we can't do anything without a frontman. Remember what I told you on the phone yesterday?" Yes, I did. _A band with no frontman is like a P&J sandwich with no bread._ "This band won't be going anywhere anymore," he told the ground. "It's a failure."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say because deep down, I had never really expected the band to go anywhere anyways. I had never told Quinn, of course, but I had secretly hoped that he saw it too. The plain truth. They would never be famous. It was just out of their reach.

Quinn would never fulfill his dream.

And now with the accident, he finally saw it too. For a second I even allowed myself to be relieved that I didn't have to break it to him myself. Maybe now he would assure himself a real future. Go to school. Get a real job. I knew he could do it; he had a great deal more potential than my brother.

But he didn't see things the way I did.

"I'll be stuck working at Starbucks all my life," he declared sadly. "Serving fucking coffee."

"That's not true…" I patted his shoulder before giving in to my instinct and wrapping my arms around him gently. "You have a bright future somewhere else. Right, Bert?" Still clinging to Quinn, I turned my head to look for my brother, hoping for his confirmation. But he wasn't there.

"He vanished like five minutes ago," Quinn explained in a whisper. _Oh. _I hadn't noticed. I frowned in confusion. I guessed Bert had just felt a little useless and wanted to give us some intimacy.

A word which frightened me suddenly. _Intimacy. _Me and Quinn. Alone.

The atmosphere changed then, too abruptly. It lost its panicky disturbance and turned frightfully intense. "I'm sorry about yesterday," he said then, pulling me away just a little in order to look me in the eye. He seemed to forget the reason I had hugged him in the first place. "About, you know, my indiscretion…" His kiss. His disturbing kiss. And maybe even his _several_ _kisses_. "I shouldn't have done that. It was stupid."

"It's OK," I said quickly. "I can forget. I mean, we're still just friends, right?"

"Yeah, sure…" he muttered, looking down. He didn't manage to conceal his disappointment at the word _friends_. It was what I had expected. My question had been a test, and he had passed.

He was about to let me go when I pulled him close ferociously and forced him to raise his chin with the tip of my fingers. "No," I breathed. "Don't pretend." I loosened my arms a little and smiled to encourage him. "You know you want it, and I do too." I prayed that I wasn't making a terrible mistake, that this would not break us apart.

And I kissed him. With all my will and all my love. It was so different from what I had felt the day before that I had the impression of kissing somebody else. This time I meant it, I felt it, I tasted it. I loved it.

Finally, our lips parted and we took a second to catch our breaths and let it sink in. And then he whispered, "This was our true first kiss. You're so much better than me."

I snickered. "Naturally." And I kissed him again. For a very long time.

It's true that time ceases to exist in moments like these. So does gravity. And worry, and sadness, and pain… It was just me and Quinn, nothing else mattered. Jeph was light-years away in my mind. So was Bert. Or any other problem that usually hung heavily above my head. It was pure bliss.

And then, a second or a century later, he was hugging me again. Holding my hand. And then nothing. His hands left mine slowly and we both stared awkwardly at the ground. So that was it. The beginning of something new, something beautiful. And something terribly scary.

"Well, um…" He cleared his throat. "I guess we should go find your brother."

I nodded vigorously and proceeded to the task without hesitating. In about half a minute we had cleared all rooms but the bathroom, to which the door was closed. "Oh well, I guess we can say we found him," Quinn concluded.

But something bothered me. The light was off. It was clear by the pitch black line under the door. Hesitantly, I approached the door and pressed my ear against it. And in the dead silence, I heard his voice. Singing! High, clear, and so beautiful I actually paused to wonder if it was really him. He played with the notes with such ease and such elegancy… The soft melody hypnotised me for a second, and I came to forget the strangeness of the situation.

A lunatic idea came to me then. Just an idea. I don't know why, but all of a sudden I felt like a genius. A senseless smile started growing on my face as I realised that that voice could be his salvation. It was a long shot for sure, but for the first time after the big fight, I figured he might actually have a future somewhere.

And then it hit me. So late. And with such roughness. My smile froze. I felt my entire body stiffen and my eyes widen. Because the song he was singing wasn't just any song.

"'_Cause we are only sparks_…"

It was our mother's lullaby. The last thing he wanted to hear before dying…

_Before dying._

"_But together burning bright._"

"No!" I squeaked just as he pronounced the last word. I literally kicked the door open and threw myself at him in the dark.

Then I heard the gunshot.


	5. Chapter 5

5 Bert.

I don't know why I pulled the trigger. I don't know why I tried to die. And I certainly don't know why I failed.

I didn't think about it though. I didn't try to find the answer. Because I simply didn't care anymore. I didn't care about anything. It was the only way to keep from losing my mind.

But reality always came back to me. Dark, heavy, suffocating. I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to dig myself a hole and spend the rest of my life hidden inside it. But it was impossible.

He was there. Waiting for me. Every time I took a step outside, I felt him around me like a ghost. Watching me fall into his trap. Waiting for revenge.

Kate. He would use her to destroy me, like I destroyed him. I was her only chance. She needed me. And I couldn't help her.

The arms squeezed me again and brought my thoughts back to the dark little room. I was crushed between the wall—or the shower, whatever—and the person who cared the most about me in the whole world. Rachel.

And still, I was willing to throw it all away and disappear, without one last glance towards them. That was how selfish I was.

Someone turned the light on then, and I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut. "Chelly…?" a shaky voice breathed. I felt her start to shiver, and then she pulled away from me, grabbing the gun that still lay in my limp hand. The air that replaced her was freezing—or so it felt—but I didn't flinch. I just lay there with my eyes shut until I was sure she'd left.

I was alone again. Or so I thought, until somebody cleared their throat and I jumped. My eyes flew open—which was actually pretty painful with all the light.

"So… are you gonna just lie there and pretend you're dead?" Quinn. He was a nice guy. I guessed I had ruined the tiny bits of friendship I had managed to build up with him. Now he saw me for who I really was. "Hey…" I heard him take a step towards me. I didn't want him to try to help me. I didn't want him to _touch_ me.

Out of pure fear, I made an immense effort to sit up—in a rather awkward position—and look at him. "Leave," I ordered in a rough and tired voice which I barely recognized. He didn't wait for me to beg. He turned and left almost immediately. Probably to go comfort Rachel.

For a second, in the dead silence, I almost felt at peace. My eyes drifted to the blood that gushed from my arm, from the lines I had clumsily carved with a razor blade, the lines that formed one little word. It would be incomprehensible if it wasn't such a simple and obvious word.

_Sorry._

The only pain I felt was in my head. My arm was numb; that pain was insignificant, as if it was somebody else's arm I had mutilated.

Slowly, I got up on my feet. I didn't know why. I had no reason to move anymore. I guess I just felt like I should do something now that I had ruined everything. Again.

Once I was sure my legs could hold me, I looked up. Only to see the most horrible thing I had ever seen in my life. Worse than the abused strippers who threw their bodies away, the homeless junkies who fed on drugs, all the monsters that hid in the darkest corners of the world.

I saw myself. My distorted reflection in the broken mirror—the victim of my bullet.

Who was that guy, staring at me with that disgusted expression? So dirty and threatening. His face pulled down by his sorrow, his eyes lost in his insanity. Broken by his past, his every memory, and the present moment. He was a stranger, a freak. He scared me, still I wished I could help him. He was pleading for me to help him. But there was nothing I could do. My instinct yelled at me to turn away, to run far away from that ghost and never look back.

But how could I? Where could I run that he would not follow me? I could never escape from him. All I could do to get rid of him was to silence him forever. But I guess that plan had failed too.

"Bert?"

I jumped and took a shaky step back. She was standing in the doorway, deliberating on whether or not to come in. Her face was flushed from crying. I despised myself in that moment.

We didn't say anything for a long time, and then she finally took a slow step forward. I could tell she was trying hard not to burst into tears again. She took my bleeding forearm in her shaky hand and as soon as she saw the word, a shuddering sob escaped her lips. Her hand tightened around the wound and a new wave of blood covered her fingers. "Oh, God," she whispered.

"Chelly, you alright?"

Ugh. He was starting to get on my nerves. When he tried to approach us I yanked my arm from between her stained fingers and took another step back. I felt the shower behind me and knew that I was trapped. But he stopped and backed away. "Hey, come on, it's alright," he encouraged stupidly.

Rachel took my arm back and pulled me towards her. I resisted at first, and then… Fuck it. I decided I had done enough hiding for one day. I gave up trying to get away from them and followed my sister to her room, leaving Quinn behind.

For a minute I wondered why I was such a coward. Why did I keep hiding from everyone? Why couldn't I face my sister? Why couldn't I face my life? …

Because it was just too much for a dumb little freak like me.

We spent about an hour sitting on the bed without saying anything. Rachel bandaged my arm, brought us some food—I hadn't realised I was starving until then—and gave me a few hugs too. I didn't feel like I still had the right to hug her back—or even look at her. She cried a little. I cried on the inside. Quinn didn't show.

And then, out of nowhere, she retrieved her power of speech. To say something purely pathetic. "I forgive you, you know. You don't have to feel sorry about anything." This time I had to look at her.

_What? _I had tried killing myself. I had attempted the murder of her brother. It was strange to think of it that way, but I still sort of felt like I was two people at once, like the guy I had almost killed wasn't _me_, but just another fucked up loser. Still, he was her brother and she cared about him. And I had almost taken him away from her.

She sighed. "Look, I don't know what kind of hateful thoughts you're sending yourself right now, but I think you should stop. I mean, it wasn't a good thing, what you did there—at all… But you got what you deserve in return—no, you got much worse. You don't need to add up to it by hating yourself."

That didn't make much sense. So… in her opinion, I shouldn't really feel bad about anything. But of course I did, it wasn't like I _decided_ to feel bad! Fuck, it was so complicated. I was starting to feel a headache building up…

"Will you please just say something!"

I panicked. And of course, the first words I could think of were, "I'm sorry."

She groaned. I guess that wasn't what she wished to hear. But at least it was something. "Why did you do it?" she suddenly asked with a surprising intensity.

"Because I…" Because I what? Why had I tried to die? "Because I'm fucking insane." Yeah, that seemed accurate.

She nodded understandingly. "OK, but there must have been like, some sort of trigger! Something bad that happened to you lately and made you feel the need to… disappear—suddenly, you know?"

Now _that _was a good point. Because indeed, there was something, I hadn't just spontaneously decided to kill myself for no reason at all. And now I had to explain everything. I had to explain _him. _How he followed me everywhere. How he waited for his precious revenge. How he haunted my every thought. How he'd pushed me into suicide.

I had to explain how I had lied.

"Um…" Where could I start? "Remember what I told you the night I came here? Why I was in trouble?"

"Yeah," she answered immediately. "A crazy dude wants to kill you 'cause you stole his crack."

She made it sound so pathetic. But there was so much she didn't know. "OK but, before that. I told you about how I got Kate—"

"From the drug-dealer back in Orem. Yeah, I know. And you gave him a hell of a beating…" she remembered.

That was the first lie. "Roach…" I hesitated. Should I tell her? It would completely change the way she saw me. But I had to. I owed her that, at least. "I did more than just beat him up. I killed him."

For a second she froze. Then, incomprehension filled her face and she shook her head in disbelief. "You… killed him," she repeated as if it was the stupidest thing to say.

I nodded slowly. "I stabbed him with a knife." I didn't feel the guilt or the horror I thought I should feel. I felt… sort of empty, like I didn't really care, like I wasn't even talking about myself. The memory was blurry, twisted and buried so deep in my mind I almost wondered if I hadn't made it up. "And then I stole his money and brought Kate with me to Salt Lake City," I continued dully. "We rented the apartment, we went on with our lives… And then we got kicked out."

"By the crazy dude, who is also a drug-dealer, 'cause they all are these days… a—and he's the one you stole from, later," she completed again, this time with much less assurance than she had the first time. "And now he wants to kill you because of that, in your opinion."

Second lie. "Yeah, but there's a catch. You see, he doesn't want to kill me because I'm a thief, but because I'm a murderer. The guy I killed… that was his brother. That's why he wants to kill me."

That was it. I had spilled the beans. I had told her the true nature of my problem. Now I expected she would finally understand me, why I was so worried all the time. Why I was so terrified. Why I felt so anguished, so small, so ashamed, so sad, so alone… Why I had pulled the trigger. I was a murderer. And now I paid for my crime.

But instead of the comprehension I was anticipating, her expression only showed more confusion. She shook her head again, but this time in a more thoughtful way. She was doubting again. "So… you killed his brother, and then he just _happened_ to find you, among all the apartments in the city? And then you just _happened_ to steal from the same dude? Or did you do that on purpose?"

My heart sank. She didn't believe me. She didn't understand. I had no answer to her questions. Yes, it had just happened. Just like that. There was surely an explanation, but I was too tired, too desperate to try to find it. Besides, it was missing the point. Who cares why it had happened? The point was, it had happened, and now it was killing me. Because everywhere I looked, in my every thought and every dream, I saw him. Not physically, I didn't see his face or anything—phew!—but I saw a sort of shadow, a creeping menace that he would find me and he would make me pay. And somehow, he was already doing that by torturing me with his horrible presence. Every second was a burden. And every second, I reconsidered the possibility that he had found Kate first.

Every second, I realised she could be dead.

"Hey, come on, it's alright," Rachel whispered. "Don't cry." Fuck, now I was crying. She tried taking my hand but I pulled it back quickly. I didn't want her to try to comfort me again by telling me that I was crazy, that it was all in my head, that pretty soon the after-shock of my drug addiction would end and I would forget it all, that I would become a fucking sane person! I didn't want her to lie to me again.

A long silence followed. The tension in the room started crushing me, but I ignored it. I had much bigger problems.

"You're a very good singer," Rachel suddenly declared as if I was an old acquaintance she'd run into after a talent show. I must've looked glum, because she insisted, "No, really! I mean, I know it's probably stupid, but I've always thought you had a nice voice, and just now I realised that you're _really_ good."

What the fuck? "'Just now' as in 'right before I almost killed myself'?"

"Yes, exactly." She was entirely serious.

I just wanted to end that conversation. "Well, then, I guess I'll just become a singer and live happily ever after and have many children!"

She stared at me, unmoved by my sardonic conclusion. "You know why you've never done anything good in your life?" Ouch. Where was her compassion now? "Because you've never given yourself the chance. You always give up. You have a spur of ambition, and then when it gets too hard you give up!

"It was the same with drugs. Remember how much you hated them before, how much you were against them? You used to tell me about how useless drugs were and how they ruined people. Do you even remember that, Bert? You were a straight-edger, for fuck's sake! You had a fucking straight-edge magazine!" Her voice broke. "And then, one day, you got in a fight, you had a bad experience. And you got tempted. Just once. And what did you do? You gave up! You forgot _everything_ you'd told me, everything you'd believed! You just fucking gave up!" Her eyes watered through her anger and frustration. I looked down. I felt ashamed again, even more than before. I almost felt worse now than I had for killing a guy.

Because deep down, I knew she was right.


	6. Chapter 6

6 Quinn.

"_You're not bigger than this, not better, why can't you learn?"_

Ugh. Ew. Fuck. And to think I loved that song…

Honestly, I had never heard a more horrific, disgusting, ear-splitting, embarrassing version of Jimmy Eat World's "Lucky Denver Mint" in my life. Did these guys even _try_? Or did they just audition because they had nothing better to do with their evening?

This was the third wasted night, already. We'd gotten in total about twenty or thirty auditions, no more, and most of them were old acquaintances. All of them sucked.

Strange to think that Jepha's mom was probably lucky to be in the hospital with him right now instead of in her own house—which we had monopolized for the auditions, ironically enough—because at least her ears weren't bleeding.

The deal was this: we would hold auditions in Jepha's basement—mainly because it was the biggest and less occupied—for as long as we needed in order to find a temporary replacement for him, maybe save our asses for a few more weeks, and then when our real vocalist would be able to get up on his feet again—hopefully in one piece—we'd be able to go on with our lives. It was the most logical thing to do.

But to be honest, none of us had considered it would take _that _long.

"I think I'm gonna go hang myself," Ashton muttered through his hands. His right pinky was bandaged to his ring finger, having been broken in the accident. It was pretty much the only evidence that he'd been in it.

The guy who'd just finished wrecking "Lucky Denver Mint" stared at Ashton wide-eyed, taking his comment very personally. "Hey, fuck you, man!" He turned and walked away angrily, muttering, "I have better things to do anyway." He stopped only to grab the half-empty beer Branden had left on the ground and empty it in one big gulp before throwing the bottle at Ashton. Neither of them moved at the pathetic attempt to impress us. We'd all suffered enough already.

We were finally alone again. I glanced at the old clock on the wall. Eleven forty. How could it take so fucking long to listen to a bunch of losers yelling their throats out? We hadn't made any progress.

In the desperate silence, my thoughts drifted to Rachel again. Her sweet smile, her deep blue eyes, the way she held me and kissed me… I felt a tiny smile growing on my lips—good thing neither of the guys was looking at me or they'd think I'd lost it.

I hadn't seen Rachel since Monday night, when I'd returned to Orem, leaving her and Jepha behind. I had actually considered staying in Salt Lake City for a few more days, but duty called, we needed a replacement _pronto, _and we couldn't possibly hold auditions there!

"We should try holding auditions in Salt Lake," Branden suddenly proposed. I threw him a long look of disbelief. "I mean, I know it's complicated and all, and you guys have day jobs, but I think it's our last chance. We can't miss it."

He was right, of course. Our little town just didn't have what we needed. If we really wanted someone good, we had to look further.

Then again, there was always the possibility of settling for some easily manipulated asshole like the many who had crossed this basement in the past seventy-two hours and bearing his wrecking vocals for a few weeks. I proposed this idea out loud, but it was met with highly disapproving expressions.

"I am not being friendly with any of those fuckheads, _ever_," Branden stated clearly.

I frowned, feeling a sudden need to defend my idea. "Well, if we don't have a choice—"

"But we _do, _retard! It right there in front of you!"

Actually, there was nothing in front of me. "Look, I don't know what you plan to do, but I can guarantee you there won't be a queue in front of Rachel's apartment for our stupid auditions."

He raised his eyebrows. "Why do you assume we'll do it at your girlfriend's apartment?"

I gulped at my blunder. "Why do you assume we'll do it at all?"

"I think we should give it a try," Ashton intervened calmly, "but it's gonna be complicated and we're gonna have to advertise our cause." I caught myself nodding approvingly. Ashton continued proudly, "And then, if we're really lucky, we might find someone who's worth replacing Jepha. Maybe even replacing him indefinitely."

I froze. Now _that _was a different thing completely. Jepha did not need to be replaced _indefinitely_. I refused to even consider the possibility. He would be alright. He would get out of that hospital soon and he would be just fine. He had to.

"Wait, what?" Branden seemed to finally comprehend what Ashton proposed. "Why would we need a permanent replacement for Jepha? Are you crazy?"

"Well, what if he doesn't make it? We can't just pretend that that's impossible!" Oh, yes, we can.

Branden's face twisted in disgust and anger. "Shut the fuck up, Ashton!" He abruptly got up from his chair, which fell heavily behind him, making us all jump. "How can you say that!" he continued. "He's gonna fucking make it, OK? And we won't replace him! Ever!"

A heavy silence fell over the wide room. My cellphone suddenly broke it with that annoying and famously loud ring. I was glad it did, partly because it interrupted that dangerous conversation and partly because I could only think of one person who could call me so late in the night.

"Hey, my favorite little freak!" I answered happily.

"That's dangerous, Quinn," she told me, clicking her tongue. "What if it wasn't me calling and you called someone else your 'favorite little freak'? Like your boss, for example?"

"My boss wouldn't call me at midnight, Chelly."

There was a short silence as she looked for the right response. "Ugh, whatever!" she finally choked, chuckling. "I always lose!"

"Only against me…" I almost got lost in a state of romantic daydreaming again, as I often did these days, in which I spent endless minutes smiling sheepishly and focusing only on the fact that on the other side of the telephone line stood… an angel… but then someone cleared his throat and I became aware of the two pairs of eyes staring at me intently. I guess they wanted me to get to the point. "So Chelly, why did you call? This time."

"Well… I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess." I think my heart skipped a beat. Again. Being in love was so awesome.

"OK… erm, that's great!" Ugh. Really, I could've come up with a better reply. "Th—that's all?"

She hesitated. "Uh, actually, I wanted to… Hey, how are the auditions going?"

What was it with the quick change of subject? "Horrible," I answered honestly. "Ashton wants to hang himself." He scoffed. "We were thinking about holding auditions in your city, actually," I continued.

"In Salt Lake City!" she squeaked. Eesh. What was _her_ problem?

"Well… that _is _where you live, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Of course. If you think that's the right thing to do." She chuckled nervously. "But, um, I wanted to propose something to you."

"OK…" I was dying to know what was making her so nervous.

"I think I know someone who could replace your guy…" Wow. _That_ was making her nervous? "Just temporarily, you know," she added quickly.

"Of course! It's not like we're looking for a permanent replacement or anything." I snickered and shot a meaningful look at Ashton. "So who is it?"

"It's… don't laugh… my brother."

Oh.

…

_What?_

"Bert?" I raised my eyebrows even though she couldn't see me.

"Yeah." She sighed. "OK, I know what you're thinking. 'He's a crazy junkie, he's suicidal, he's an asshole… How could he be a singer?'" Wow, that was exactly what I was thinking. "But I swear, he can do it!" she continued. "He's got it, even though it doesn't show. Just give him a chance and you'll see, you're gonna be blown away by what he can—"

"Woah, woah, woah! Slow down! You want your brother to be Jeph's replacement?" I repeated loud and clear so that Branden and Ashton could understand too. They didn't budge though. Of course, they had no idea who Bert was.

And then, I suddenly felt betrayed. Because if she was proposing this to me, if was obviously for her own good, for that of her stupid brother. There was _no way _he could be a good singer, I could easily tell, but she was still willing to _use_ me and my band in order to give him yet another chance. That was the word: I felt _used_.

"Yes," was the answer to my previous question. The confirmation that I wasn't hallucinating.

I squeezed the cell phone, wondering whether or not I should tell her that I had guessed her intentions fast enough. "And you want that because…" I was curious to know if she would insist with her lie.

"Because he's really good. He may be the guy you're looking for." OK, so she did. "And of course, it would give him another chance…" Why of course! At least she had the decency to end with a bit of truth.

I felt a knot build up at the bottom of my throat. "OK," I finally breathed. "We'll, um, check him out. But we're still doing auditions though."

She sighed. "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. That you might find someone even better."

* * *

Bert.

Me? A singer? Honestly, I hadn't realised she was serious the first time she'd mentioned it.

"You're crazy."

"_You _need to open your mind," she replied sharply. "And please, don't make me look stupid in front of my boyfriend."

"Well you're the one who told him I could be his fucking vocalist without me even being aware of the fact!"

"So you agree that it's a fact?"

I blinked. "Don't change the subject!"

"Look, if you wanna turn your life around, you better shut up and listen to me. I'm doing this for your own good… Or maybe you prefer killing yourself?"

That stung. I buried my face in my hands desperately. How could I be a singer? It was such a stupid idea. I would ruin everything.

Then again… I already had. And if I had to choose between this and dying, well fuck, I had nothing to lose!

"OK." I looked up at her hard expression. "OK," I repeated so that she could hear me clearly and maybe soften a bit.

A triumphal smile crept to her lips. "Thank God." Wow, she didn't even bother to thank _me_. "You'll see, you're gonna blow everyone away. Including yourself." Her attempt at encouraging me only made me scoff. Like I could be good at anything…

"Anyway, I gotta go now, so… don't do anything stupid!" She chuckled warmly, but I only felt more annoyed. C'mon, I had been a good boy for three days now! I had taken the craving in silence, I had tolerated _him _without flinching, even though he was as present as ever, I had even eased off on the cigarettes a bit. How long would it take for her to just let me be? "And practice your voice a little!" she shouted from the doorway. "Just sing! Goodbye!" And she slammed the door behind her.

If there was one thing I was sure about, it was that I would not sing a note.


	7. Chapter 7

7 Rachel.

"Come in!"

As soon as Quinn walked through the doorway, it was as if gravity had changed its origin from the center of the Earth to the center of Quinn. I leaped at him with such force that he yelled like a little girl, but I knew he wanted it as much as me. I squeezed him as hard as I could and topped it all with a sweet kiss on his lips.

"Aw, how adorable…" I looked up to see who had let out that sardonic comment—thus, who I was gonna punch in the face—and immediately the expression on Branden's idiot face—half-closed eyelids, puckered lips and all that—made me giggle half-hysterically.

"Breathe, Chelly! I don't know CPR!" Quinn laughed. I managed to calm myself down a little, but I still felt hyper for some reason. Maybe I was just hyper-_tired_.

"Hey there, Quinn. And other guys." I turned around to see my brother standing awkwardly some ten feet away from us, hesitating on taking another step.

"Guys, this is Bert," I presented. "Bert, this is Branden, and that's Ashton. That's right, huh? I didn't mix you guys up?" Another stupid giggle escaped my lips. They muttered a couple of unsure _No_'s and shot each other a doubtful look.

I noticed then that Ashton's fingers were broken and that Branden had a couple of stitches right under his hairline. They were both covered in yellowish bruises too, but then again it was maybe just my imagination. My smile vanished and I shivered, thinking about poor Jeph.

And for no reason at all, I giggled again. It was starting to trouble me.

"You sure you're not still drunk, Rachel?" Ashton asked then, half-serious.

"Oh, she's always like that," Quinn answered. He was the only one who was seemingly happy.

"Alright, so… we came here to hear you sing, right?" Branden asked Bert. Impatience showed all over his face now.

It took Bert an eternity to respond. I was already starting to get pissed at him. Finally, he muttered a shaky "Yeah," and we all sat down on the couches as if we were having some formal meeting.

Nothing happened for a minute, and then I proposed getting everyone a drink. I got mixed responses, from smiles to doubtful glares, but in the end everyone got a beer. I noticed Quinn's mood was falling and sinking into some deep dark trench as he slowly remembered something I couldn't imagine—just by looking at his face it was obvious enough.

I started panicking. What now? How could I make my brother open his mouth? Before the doorbell had rung we'd been in the middle of an argument because he simply refused to use his voice for anything then muttering, despite his agreement of this morning. It was the pressure, he told me. He was too _stressed. _I was about to slap him when the guys arrived.

And now I didn't know what to do. Gladly, Quinn started talking first. Well… maybe not "gladly."

* * *

Quinn.

The level of pathetic-ness of this situation was record-breaking. She could lie to me this much, pull me into her stupid little trap, but she couldn't just _make_ her brother sing. Because he couldn't, it was that simple. And he never would. Ever. And if she thought that I would just go "Oh well, he'll have to do, I mean he's your brother so he deserves our help!" … well she was really fucking wrong.

I would not let her use me.

I allowed a short spur of regret to fill me for a second—I had been almost euphoric only a few minutes ago, just at the idea of seeing her again—and began, "Who the fuck do you think you're kidding?" I intended to look at her, but instead my eyes were glued to Bert. "Do you think you're actually gonna convince anyone that you're fit for this role? The leader of a band!" I felt my anger towards him boil up deep inside me, and only then did I realise how huge in was. "Have you ever even been in a band before?" I continued roughly. "Do you even know what it's like? Do you think you can just walk in and suddenly _belong_? Well, sorry to shatter your dreams, but it doesn't work that way. You need to _deserve _your spot in this band and it's not by staring at us that you're gonna do that!"

He didn't seem too impressed. In fact, he looked very much like he didn't give a fuck about me or my band. Which pissed me off even more.

"In fact, I don't see what you could do," I continued. "I don't wanna be rude,"—OK, it didn't show—"but you're pretty much just a big failure, dude. Seriously, did you _ever_ work hard in your life? Ever? Or are too lazy to even stay alive, because of course you just had to try to kill yourself!" Suddenly, a new anger filled me, triggered by the memory of Rachel after the bathroom incident. "Do you realise what it would have done to her if you'd succeeded? If she'd lost you, by your own hand, in her own fucking bathroom! Did you even think about that! Or are you that much of an asshole?" I already knew the answer. "Of course you are." And then, just to make a good ending, I added, "Fuck!"

God, that felt good!

Everyone just stared. Branden snickered, amused for some reason, but his smile quickly vanished when Rachel spoke. "Quinn! What the hell is wrong with you!" I gulped. Oh great, now she was angry at me. But shit, what did I expect?

* * *

Bert.

Blank. That was the only way I could feel. Empty. Dead.

And it was OK. I didn't feel at all angry, or sad. I had had much worse before. Besides, he was entirely right. And it was OK. It had always been. There was nothing I could do—trust me, I had tried—so I just had to suck it up. Keep living.

Even though… I still wasn't quite sure about that last part.

* * *

Rachel.

I had to pinch myself just to make sure I wasn't in some confusing nightmare. What the hell was all this about?

I kept my wide eyes on Quinn, trying to pierce through his veil and figure out his intentions. "Come with me." I tugged on his arm and pulled him in a private corner of a different room. "Are you trying to teach him a life-lesson or something?" I shouted as soon as I slammed the door behind us. "What, you think he's not _aware_ of his situation? You think he doesn't understand? You think he doesn't care?"

He gulped. "He doesn't seem to."

"You don't even know him!" I sighed deeply and passed my hands through my hair. "Look, you're just here to listen to his voice, OK? Not judge the content of his life."

He raised his eyebrows doubtfully. What exactly wasn't clear in what I'd just said? "Why are you doing this, Chelly?" The tone of his voice was weak, almost pleading.

I frowned. "Doing what?"

"Well, you know…" He hesitated. "Pretending. Using me. To help your brother."

_Using_ him? What the living fuck? "What are you talking about? I'm not using you! What's your problem? That I proposed that Bert should take your singer's spot?" He nodded. "And how is that using you? I'm just trying to fix two problems at once."

"Yeah, but, c'mon! You're not really telling me he can actually sing!"

My mouth popped open. That was his problem? He didn't believe Bert could sing…? I almost felt like laughing all of a sudden. Proving him wrong would not be too hard.

Unless my brother didn't open the lock on his throat in the next thirty minutes. Which was rather likely. Shit.

"Quinn… he _can _sing. He's really fucking good!" He didn't look convinced. "Look, he's just having a really hard time, and I know he's not like, your dream frontman, but he has a good voice! Honestly! Gosh, I can't believe you would expect me to lie to you like that."

"I didn't expect anything. You're just… so unpredictable." He smiled faintly.

I sighed, this time calmly. "Listen, I tell you this is the right guy. He may be a big fucking loser, but he's your guy. I promise." Then I took a step towards him and squeezed his hands between my fingers. It wasn't long before our lips met again.

* * *

Branden.

Well, this was pretty fucking awkward. Just saying.

The kid with the wavy hair and the long face—what was his name again? Ben? Brad?—stared at the ground with an expression on his face that screamed, "I'm about to go cut my wrists." And now that Quinn and his girlfriend had left Ashton, this guy and me alone together, I was left to wonder if I was supposed to do anything. I mean, I kinda' felt like laughing for some reason, but it definitely wasn't appropriate.

"So, uh, now what?" Ashton asked. I backed him up mentally.

It took a minute before the kid muttered, "Well, I'm obviously just a waste of your time, so… I guess you guys can leave as soon as Quinn gets back here." He didn't look as disappointed as I would have expected. In fact he looked pretty much like he had given up on life.

"It might take some time, though, now that he has a girlfriend." Ashton snickered at his own comment and I couldn't help but mirror him.

"Maybe we should like, intervene before things go too far," I proposed.

"Nah, c'mon, why ruin their fun?" Well, he had a point.

But what about… "Hey, what's your name again?" I had to ask.

He didn't seem to realise that I was talking to him at first, and then he muttered, "Bert." Oh, right. So what about _Bert_? I actually really wanted to let him _try_ to impress us, at least. I mean seriously, after all the shit we'd heard the last few days I couldn't imagine anything worse.

"So… are you gonna sing or what?"

He seemed surprised. Well, as surprised as a stage-four suicidal can be. "Really? I thought you guys hated me."

"Nah, just Quinn. Don't ask me why. But whatever. C'mon, go for it!"

"Yeah man, we're waiting," Ashton insisted.

He grimaced—or was it an attempt to smile?—and said, "I really don't know what to sing."

"Aw c'mon!" I was starting to get pissed. "Something everyone knows! Uh… 'Amazing Grace'!" It was the first thing I thought of.

He snickered. Ashton laughed. And to my great surprise, the junkie finally took a deep breath and started, "_Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…_" We held our breath. "Uh, that's all I know."

I blinked. As short as that had been, it had been… pretty good! Actually it had been great, by far the best I'd heard among all the auditions. His voice had almost changed completely in those five seconds, from his usual deep and rough tone it had turned high and melodious… I wanted to hear more.

"OK,OK, another song!" Ashton clapped his hands childishly. "Um…" And then, he started singing. "_Like a virgin, hey!_"

I couldn't have chosen a better song. "_Touched for the very first tiiime!" _I continued with him. We sounded so stupid even Bert smiled.

And suddenly it was as if a wall had been taken down somewhere in his mind. He lightened up instantly and continued the song with us, "_Like a viiirgin," _we sang together, "_When your heart beats… next to mine!_" We ended up laughing stupidly and I sure as hell felt relieved. The second part of the chorus had sounded much better with him singing along—you know, less pitchy and horrible.

He surprised me again when he continued the song, singing every line by heart—and, even if he was just messing around, still nailing it, "_Gonna give you all my love boy, my fear is fading fast! Been saving it all for you 'cause only love can last!" _Ashton was pissing himself laughing and I wasn't far from it. "_You're so fine and you're mine! Make me strong, yeah you make me bold…"_

"Oh my God, stop!" Ashton squeaked. "You're gonna kill me!" And through the tears, he seemed to realise something just as I did.

Bert was our guy. He was _it_!He sang beautifully, not seeming to have any trouble with that high and girly song, and somehow… hell, he even seemed like a nice guy right then.

* * *

Bert.

I hadn't felt so good in years. I forgot entirely what Quinn had thrown at me. I managed to escape from every dark memory that haunted my mind and that I had learned to call home. From the nightmare that had become a part of me. From _him. _From that gnawing fear. I was free.

And all I did was sing "Like A Virgin."

Deep down, I had always known my voice had something special to it, I just hadn't really paid it much attention. I mean really, where's a cute voice gonna take you? I snickered at that thought. It would definitely take you further than the path I'd chosen…

But now I realised that singing could do more than just get me a future. It transported me to a better place, it made me feel… like a single person again. There was no more ghost at the back of my mind. I felt complete.

Even if it only lasted a few minutes.

"Bert!" Rachel came in running with Quinn on her heels. "Wow, do that again!"

I stared at her. "You want me to sing 'Like A Virgin' _again_?"

"Oh no, mercy!" Ashton begged, laughing again.

"No, just sing something else for Quinn. Just convince him!"

I smiled—ouch, my facial muscles sure had stiffened. _Convince Quinn. _Well, might as well give it a try.

* * *

Rachel.

The rest of the evening went by quickly and nicely.

OK, I won't lie, it was fucking awesome. We went through every CD I could find in my apartment—as few as that was—and we sang along. Bert sang most of the time—how did he know all those lyrics by heart!—but we all just joined in at any random moment. We went through all the disco hits and the corny romantic stuff of the 80's, all the more stupid and crazy—and terribly fun.

My brother explored his voice, going for his highest and lowest—so far apart it was scary—and pushing it to see how loud it would go—loud enough to wake the whole story, in my opinion. I was more and more impressed by how beautiful, high and unique that voice was, how it could go from soft and angelic to strong and impressive.

At some point, Branden even asked, "Can you scream?"

Bert frowned. "Scream…"

"You know… RAWR!" He chuckled at his attempt to explain and then shook his head. "Never mind, you'll get it later."

And he did—after a few hilarious failed attempts. I had to tell him to keep it down after that though, 'cause I didn't feel like being kicked out of my apartment too.

Long story short, we had a blast, and without the help of alcohol… or, anyway, not too much alcohol. But the best part was the ending, when we finally decided we were tired enough, and Quinn apologized to Bert for what he'd said—to which Bert gave him a huge hug—before adding, almost grandly, "Dude… welcome to this fucking band!"


	8. Chapter 8

8 Bert.

And then, everything changed.

I followed my new bandmates back to the old town I had abandoned a long time ago, where they showed me all their progress—the demos, the recorded song, the lyrics scribbled on some scrap paper—and welcomed me to make any change I wanted. To which I responded, "Are you fucking serious?" Because seriously, what change could an ignorant little shit like me actually make? To me, all the stuff they'd done was like, really. Fuckin. Awesome.

So they settled for just showing me what I was supposed to sing for them, three or four songs for now. Apparently, it would be enough to get them back on the stage, and they were planning that for next Sunday. Which was only one day and a half away.

But I didn't panic. I had nothing else to do, so I focused on memorizing lyrics and hitting notes—honestly, their songs were so easy to sing I was starting to doubt the capacity of their previous singer. And, not trying to be rude, but judging by the songs I'd heard… he really wasn't that good. Which made me hopeful because I considered the possibility that they'd actually let me keep the role of vocalist in their band and that I would finally find my place in the world and be happy and—

But fuck, I had no right to hope for that. I just had to focus on memorizing stuff for now.

Oh well.

* * *

Rachel.

I was humming. Again. If happiness was visible, people would not even be able to see me anymore, because I was covered in it.

…

What a weird thing to say. Anyways, I was just really, really happy. Ladididam!

Bert had called. Also again. He called every half hour to tell me about all the new stuff he'd discovered and how excited he was and how he felt like a different person and blah, blah, blah. But hey, I couldn't lie, I loved it. To know that he was finally happy. I just hoped—crossed my fingers and toes—that it would last.

And then we were Sunday, and he called me again to tell me about two things. The first, that his "first ever gig in his life ever" was that evening—it was, I think, the tenth time he told me—and the second, that he had started thinking about writing a song himself. Well, not a _song_, just the lyrics to a demo Dumb Luck had already recorded, but it was still more than he'd ever hoped to do.

"I really want it to mean something, you know? I want it to… like, _speak_ to people, not just shove random words at them." Of course, wasn't that what they all wanted? The real concern was, _could he do it? _

Well, by now, anything could happen.

Yeah, I was happy for a little while there…

I could start focusing on my studies again, talking to my friends normally—and getting them to stop thinking that I had to see a therapist—getting a new part-time job—I had lost the previous one a few weeks earlier after having something like a panic attack because I was too stressed out and I missed Quinn and I had seen a huge spider. In other words, I could live my life again. For a couple of days, at least…

And then of course, despite my crossed fingers, despite my crossed toes, everything got really fucked up again.

It started with a phone call. It was three in the afternoon and I was on my way to a late class—after which I was planning on sleeping forever—when my cellphone rang. It was a rainy and chilly day. I was hiding under my umbrella, shivering. "Hello?" I blabbered, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

"Chelly? Is that you?" He sounded panicked.

"Yeah it's me, silly, who else would answer my cellphone?"

"Listen, something's happened. It's Bert." I stopped shivering. My brain became too focused for that shit. "I, uh, sent him to a corner store and he never came back," Quinn explained. "So I went out to look for him and… well, he appeared out of nowhere and practically ran into me, muttering some shit about a crazy dude who's gonna kill him. Same story you told me a while ago, I think." I gulped. "And then he just ran away, Chelly, I don't know where! I don't know what happened, I'm so sorry… What do I do?"

I held my breath. Fuck, fuck, fuck. But why! He was so happy and everything was fine!

There could only be one explanation. "Did he do drugs again, Quinn?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know? We didn't give him anything! Except maybe a little weed but that can't be so bad!"

"No, it's something else… oh, my God! When he went outside, do you think he might've found someone…"

"Oh…" He seemed to get where I was going. "Yeah, we don't exactly live in the cleanest neighborhood this state has to offer…" He sighed. "So where do you think he would go?"

I really had no idea. There were so many possibilities… The old school, wherever he'd stayed in his homeless days, even back home… "How about back to your place?" That was where he was staying now.

"Well, this is where I am now. I went back here to check for him but, you know, I can't be that lucky. Maybe I should just, go back out again and… Wait a sec!" I waited as he told me, and about five seconds later he shouted, "He's back! He just came it through the door."

I breathed out the air I had been holding back without noticing. "Can I talk to him?"

Quinn ignored my question. "Wait, something's wrong. Wha—" I tried to make sense of the muffled sounds that followed, but all I could deduce was that they were either fighting or standing in the middle of a football field. "Chelly!"

"What!" I jumped.

"He's going crazy! He keeps… yelling and throwing things around, oh my God! No, not the lamp—" His voice was faraway again. I couldn't move. Suddenly, I wanted to laugh really hard and pretend the situation was nothing but funny. And then my laughing impulse turned into a burst of tears, and I had to let it out this time.

"Fuck my life!"

I only realised I had yelled that when I saw an old man who was passing by stare at me like I was crazy. Well, it was clear enough by now that I was.

"Chelly! Chelly! Rachel McCracken!"

I quickly put the phone next to my ear again. "What!"

"What do I do?"

"I don't know!" I sighed. What could he do but wait and see what happens? "He'll calm down, just let him be and make sure he doesn't break anything important."

"OK… Wait, he's saying something! I think he calmed down a little. He just curled up on himself and he's muttering something… a name…" There was a short silence. "Kate! I think that's it. Who's Kate?"

"Er.. his girlfriend."

"Oh." He didn't add anything. And then, "Hang on, he just switched names. I think… he's muttering… _your_ name now. Great."

_Great._ Squeezing my eyes shut, I made a split-second decision. "That's it, I'm coming there." Despite my afternoon class. Despite my century-old car who couldn't carry me two miles before losing a wheel. Despite my tiredness.

"What?" He scoffed incredulously. "But it's like an hour drive."

"Less than that." OK, with my car, it was much more.

"C'mon Chelly, you don't have to do that!"

But I could hear my brother now. The muttering had become yelling, and it was my name he was yelling. I couldn't just ignore it.

"See you, Quinn!" I hung up before he could protest again. I turned on my heels and headed back towards my apartment. And pretty soon, I was in that rusty old piece of shit of a car. I glanced at my watch. Well, there was no point in changing my mind again; I was already late for my class.

* * *

Bert.

I couldn't think. I couldn't focus. It had felt so good! Why was it doing this? Why was he following me? No! I didn't want him to hurt me. I didn't want him to hurt Kate.

_You're gonna pay for this… he_ repeated, his surreal voice echoing through my mind.

I'm sorry! I didn't mean to kill anybody! It had been a mistake, I wasn't a murderer!

Yes I was. I had done it. I had stabbed a man with my own hand and he'd bled to death and I was a murderer. And now I had to pay! I had to, I had to… _He_ was there! That man's brother… That ghost. He was _inside _me. I could hear him laughing at my misery, yelling inside my head to drive me crazy, tearing me apart from the inside out.

He was a ghost, but he was also real. And after the psychological punishment, he would come for me. For _real_. I knew it.

I was suddenly aware of Quinn standing next to me. What was he doing? I didn't look. I could hear him talk over the noise. There was a noise, coming from the outside… what was it? A voice… someone screaming… yelling a name… _Rachel._

Oh shit.

I snapped my mouth shut as soon as I realised it was open. I could still hear my voice—muffled, tormented. Why couldn't I stop it? My throat hurt. Everything hurt. I kept my eyes shut. So many things spun in my head, I couldn't focus on one…

I don't know how much time passed—maybe a minute, maybe an hour—but all of a sudden I felt a small warm hand squeeze my arm. "Bert…" she whispered.

"Rachel…" I whispered back automatically. I don't know her reaction. I didn't look. I didn't listen. She started talking to me, telling me soothing things—I suppose—but I didn't understand anything. Finally, she gave up, crouched next to me and wrapped her arms around my neck—couldn't be too comfortable for her, considering that I was still hugging my knees.

And then I realised that I could think clearly—or anyways, more clearly than before. I could finally focus on one single thought again. And I started wondering… "Roach, why are you here?" Yuck, I sounded like an asthmatic eighty-year-old. "Aren't you supposed to be in Salt Lake City?"

She pulled back, clearly relieved. "Oh my… You OK?"

That was the last question I wanted to answer. "Answer my question!" I growled instead.

"I came for you! I left Salt Lake about an hour ago."

I gulped. "You came here… for me?" Wow, was I really that bad?

"Well, you were yelling my name! And Quinn was freaking out and he didn't know what to do." I sighed. "What happened, Bert?"

Honestly, I wasn't sure. I had left Quinn's house to buy eggs and milk—i.e. chips and soda—and then… oohh… I remembered.

I got up on my feet again. I had to show her that I was strong enough for that now. She did the same. And then I started, "I, uh, ran into a gang of junkies, doing crack in the middle of an alley in midday… dumb fucks." I added. "And I… wow, I went fucking berserk. It was like… a hound that runs into a herd of rabbits!" It was a good comparison. "I just—I just couldn't control myself, I'm so sorry…"

Yeah, I remembered. I had run at them like my life depended on it. When they'd understood what the hell I was doing they tried to hide it, but it was too late. I even punched one kid in the face. Not sure he really noticed though 'cause he was too fucking high. "I sniffed it right out of my palm," I remembered shamefully, "like I was starving." I felt so self-disgusted in that moment that I had to fight the urge to take off in order to hide somewhere far, far away from myself. And then I remembered that it was impossible.

Rachel looked down sadly. _Very _sadly. I could almost hear her again, _"You always give up. You have a spur of ambition, and then when it gets too hard you give up!"_ Yes, I had given up. I was just a stupid coward. Why was she so unlucky as to have me as her brother? She didn't deserve that.

"And it felt so good at first," I continued, half for myself, "better than anything I felt in the past few days. It was_ such _a relief, and the rush was… unreal. I felt invincible!" I snickered at the memory. It was so fake. That feeling was a _lie_. "But it only lasted a few minutes, I think. Not that I still kept track of time. And then that… that fear crawled back up inside me and I just lost it. I can't remember much." I paused. "I'm scared it'll come back."

Rachel clenched her fists—holding back the urge to hug me again, or maybe punch me in the face. Quinn appeared next to her then—had he been there all along? My mind hadn't been clear enough to notice him before. He took her hand and rubbed his thumb against her palm. She sighed and squeezed his fingers. … Funny how I noticed all these details but not a whole person standing next to me.

"Well, I'm glad you're OK now," Rachel finally said. "I guess I came here for nothing after all."

"What? No!" I denied immediately. "You didn't. Seriously. If you hadn't come I would still be on the ground whimpering." Was that the truth? I couldn't tell. But I knew at least that I was truly glad she had come.

The front door suddenly slammed open—we all heard it—and a screechy feminine voice happily called, "Quinn! I'm home!"

"That's my granma…" he told Rachel—and Rachel only, as if he was scared to even glance at me.

"Yeah, I know who that is!" She laughed. "I'm sure she'll be glad to see me again." Wow, she seemed to have suddenly forgotten me too. I envied them all of a sudden. Oh, how I wished I could forget myself as well!

But Rachel could not truly forget me. Ever. I was always there, buried deep in her mind, poisoning her with my stupid problems. She always remembered me, every minute. I felt guilty, and sick. I was to her what _he _was to me.

Before turning towards the entrance hall of the small house, my sister threw me one last look. A look that was, despite her, full of reproach. And I couldn't blame her.

* * *

Rachel.

I had a whole lot of trouble focusing on Quinn's granma's voice. She blabbered on about some old friend she'd run into and how much they'd missed each other and all these details about that person that no one wanted to hear. Quinn feigned interest, but I didn't bother—not that the old lady even seemed to acknowledge my presence.

Instead I let a thought drift into my mind. A memory. It had crept up on me like it often did while I was listening to my brother a few minutes earlier. I had pushed it away first, but now I let it in. I had nothing better to do but remember.

It was a long time ago, some three or four years maybe. Bert was fifteen. I was seventeen. We went to the same high school (duh). He used to get bullied all the time, of course, because of his frail shape and weird personality.

And whenever it happened—or whenever _anything_ bad would happen, actually… which was rather often—he would wait until it was very late in the night, and then he would crawl out of his bed and leave the boys' room for mine—the one I shared with two, one, and eventually none of my sisters, once they left for college. My brother would then pull me out of my sleep and tell me everything that had happened to him. I would do whatever I could to make him feel better, but usually just getting it off his chest was enough.

That same thing had happened that night. He had come into my empty-but-for-me room and shaken me until I had finally opened my eyes—not without a groan of protestation. It was pitch black in the room and I could barely make out his shape, like a shadow, standing next to me.

"Roach…" he'd whispered almost inaudibly. "I wanna talk to you."

"Sure." I had sat up quickly, forgetting my irritation.

And then, sitting next to me, he'd started, "I know it's stupid but… I had a fight with Jack yesterday." _Jack, one of his few "friends."_ "He found out I ate that hamburger... I mean, you know how crazy he is about that vegan shit…" I'd swallowed back the urge to chuckle. That famous hamburger… It was a crime for Bert and his gang to even _look_ at something as _abominable_! Fuckin straight-edgers. "And now they won't talk to me anymore. I just lost all my friends." _Aw… _Really, with his glasses and his very dorky haircut, he was just so adorable.

I'd tried to sound serious as I'd answered, "Don't worry, they'll get over it. It's not so bad."

He hadn't said anything at first. And then I'd noticed that he was hesitating. There was something he hadn't mentioned, something important, and he wasn't sure if he should. I'd searched for his hand in the darkness, and squeezed it as soon as I'd found it.

And then I had felt them. Just above his wrists. The thin little lines of dried blood, standing out and sending chills down my spine. I hadn't felt like laughing at all anymore. "Oh, no…" I'd muttered. He'd pulled his hand away quickly, looking down. "You said you would stop," I'd continued.

"I'm sorry."

But why had he done it? Surely not because of a stupid little fight. Right? So there was something he was hiding. I would've understood if he'd decided not to tell me, but not if he didn't want to tell me that there was something to say in the first place. "Bert, what happened?"

"I told you."

"No, what _really_ happened? Why did you…"

"Nothing really happened!" I had waited patiently, knowing he wouldn't be able to hide it too long. "OK, something happened," he'd finally admitted, almost shamefully.

"You don't have to tell me what it is if you don't—"

"No! I do. I wanna tell you." He'd seemed sure of it all of a sudden. "It was… it was today at school. It had nothing to do with Jack. At all. I—I don't even know why I told you about that. Probably so I wouldn't have awakened you for nothing." He snickered through his troubled expression. It was forced. "What I really wanted to tell you was…" He sighed. "It was Stevens and his gang again." _Stevens. The biggest douche in the universe. And the worst bully. _"Th-they caught up with me after school and… you know… they gave me the usual. A beating. They looked for money, but they'd already taken it all." I gulped. _He called it "the usual."_ "But this time… this time they went further." He'd seemed to have a lot of trouble continuing. "They… they had a gun. A-And they kicked me to the ground and Stevens came up to me and he…" He paused to take a deep breath.

I remembered hearing my own heart beating in the silence, like a loud drum keeping time.

"He unzipped his fly." His words had been almost inaudible. "And he told me that if I didn't suck it, they would shoot me." He'd started shaking then, his face blank with the fear of the memory. "And I did."

I had been paralysed. Shocked, at first, and then so angry, so full of hatred towards that stupid motherfucker Stevens. I had wanted to kill him for what he'd done to my brother—and hell, I still did today. Because not only had he given him the worst experience of his life, but he had also ruined what had come after.

I knew, deep down, that something had changed inside Bert that night. He had ceased to be the little nerd who got bullied and took it in silence. He had decided to do something about it. And that, mixed with the recent disconnection with his straight-edge fellows, was what had really pushed him into drug addiction, and eventually all the crap that that had brought on.

All because of that one day.

And the fuckhead responsible for it? All he had gotten was my knee in his balls. I hoped he could never have kids.

Bert never told anyone about that afterwards. Ever. Neither did I. Stevens' gang had surely forgotten, and Stevens himself probably remembered only because of the pain I'd inflicted him later. But it remained a secret. A deep and hollow secret. The root of all this shit.


	9. Chapter 9

9 Bert.

I had been so close.

But now, I almost felt like laughing at myself. How could I be so stupid? Did I honestly think that everything would fall into place? That I would be OK?

Well I had been an idiot to think that. I _was _an idiot. Just a stupid fuck. Why would anyone even bother to glance at me? I was so worthless that automatic doors didn't even open if I passed in front of them. I was only a burden. A dead weight that some people were unlucky enough as to have to carry around. People like my sister…

Why did she care so much? The more I messed up, the more she cared about me, and the more I hated myself for hurting her. It was just so crazy and fucked up and all I wanted was to end it, once and for all. If I left forever, she wouldn't have to worry about me anymore, ever. No one would. It was so simple.

Sure, I had managed to fail at that once, too. But who said I couldn't try again? In the middle of the night, when no one would be around to stop me. I would finally give myself what I deserved. A short and relieving death.

And then, I would be OK. _He _wouldn't be there anymore. There would be no more fear, no more pain. And I would be sure that it would never change.

But before I did that, there was something else I had to do. I had promised Quinn and his friends that I would do it, and I didn't want my last act to be "letting them down."

So when the clock finally struck twelve, I stopped pretending that I was sleeping and got up from the couch. I tiptoed past Quinn's room and his granma's—the lady snored like a fat old man, so no chance waking her up—and walked down the stairs to the basement.

It was small and dusty. I turned on the old lamp and contemplated for a second the ugly green walls on which hung several guitars. There was a table in the corner, covered in sheets of paper. And right there, on top, lay the sheet I was looking for. Waiting for me.

_Demo #13 _was all that it said. Thirteen. Ironic. I looked for the right record and carefully placed it in the CD player. Then, I turned the volume down to its lowest and pressed _play_. I sat down on a small wooden chair and listen to the scrappy demo as carefully as I could.

It was good—catchy. The beat was pretty cool. I wondered what kind of song it was meant to be. Not sad, definitely. Not very angry either. Or happy. It was just… very neutral. Not really inspiring.

And then I realised that it was _my _job to give it, through the lyrics, a new perspective. A meaning. I was free to talk about whatever I wanted. Or anyway… have _Jeph_ talk about whatever I wanted, since I wouldn't be around anymore by then. I had to talk about stuff I really meant, stuff I _felt_.

But writing a song about suicide didn't seem like the best option right then. It was just too depressing. Music was supposed to be my escape, not to enhance the shit I already went through. I thought about other things I felt, happier things. The list wasn't very long. But then, only about half a day earlier, I had been so happy. I had felt complete, and free, and filled with a happiness so real, like I hadn't been in years.

Now, I could barely even imagine that. I remembered, but I couldn't picture it anymore. It almost felt like a dream. Too good to be true.

And that's when I decided that _that_ was what I wanted this song to be about. Even if I had trouble only _imagining_ it, I wanted to write about it. It was the best I could think of, and hell, best end this motherfucker of a life on a positive note.

The only problem remained… I had never written lyrics in my life. I had no idea how I was supposed to do that. All I knew was that it should rhyme and that there was a chorus. Hmm, wasn't very much.

But I did have a more poetic side. I could think of metaphors very easily—well, occasionally—and I was an expert at saying something simple in a complicated way. I supposed that was what writing lyrics was all about.

So I thought. Still listening to the demo that echoed in the background, I firstly thought of how I had felt _before_ those short moments of happiness—which wasn't very hard because I felt exactly the same right now—and how Rachel had saved me by getting me this precious spot in her boyfriend's band, and how I had denied it at first, how I had found her idea stupid as hell, but in the end…

I caught myself smiling at the memory. Her plan had been so effective. I had been so happy. Why had I fucked it up? Why did I always fuck everything up?

No, I had to stay focused. Remorse wouldn't help me write anything.

I spent a long time scribbling and erasing lines, switching and replacing words, looking for more paper because I'd used it all up… Time flew by, and around five in the morning, I had finally reached something that didn't seem so bad. OK, so it didn't all rhyme perfectly, and I had no idea what melody would be associated to the words, but at least it was something and it made sense.

Mostly it talked about how changed I was—or _had been,_ anyways. How I was stronger, how I wouldn't look back, how I would quit lying—"denying the truth." And then there was a big part about Rachel—designated as "you"—who had showed me how to turn my life around. And of course, there was my first reaction to her help—a flow of emotions that were mainly based on denial, follow by—obviously—lying. 'Cause after all, it was what I did best. Other than fucking everything up.

And there was one more line I insisted upon. _I'm not going to look back. _

It was another lie, of course, because looking back was pretty much all I was doing right now. Looking back on the happy past, as well as the unhappy one, which had once again become part of the present.

So yeah, "I'm not going to look back" was a lie _presently, _but back when I was happy, I had managed to persuade myself that it was true. I had truly decided on _not looking back_. Ever. I had been determined to turn my life around once and for all.

But you know, things don't always work out the way you plan 'em.

* * *

Quinn.

"Jepha…" I muttered to myself desperately. It was late, almost two in the morning, but I had already given up on sleeping. I was just too troubled by all the recent events, too worried. Fuck. _Fuck._

What was this, some kind of curse! Did God really hate me so much!

I didn't know. But if there was something I did know, it was that Bert was the biggest asshole in the universe. A coward. I couldn't believe I had trusted him! I had been right to hate him in the first place, but then his voice was so beautiful… But hell, what did it matter if all he cared about were his stupid drugs?

He could go right ahead and be a stupid junkie if that was what he wanted, but he had to leave me, my band, and Rachel alone! Why was it that through ruining his life, he had to ruin the lives of others around him?

And all this because of a stupid accident. If Jeph had still been alright, I would've never had to deal with Bert… But no. That wasn't true. He was still Rachel's brother, and he would've managed to poison my life one way or another, just like he'd poisoned hers.

I fucking hated him.

* * *

Branden.

I shook my head again. It had become almost automatic by now. I had shaken my head in denial to everything Quinn had said in the last fifteen minutes, and if it went on I would end up shaking my head in denial to everything he would say for the rest of our lives. Like a reflex.

Because it was just so stupid.

"We can't trust him!" he repeated again.

"But Quinn, we don't have a _choice_, it's simple!" Ashton replied.

Quinn sighed desperately. "He is going to ruin _everything_. I can't take that risk. For the sake of this band."

"Oh, sheesh! I'm sorry, _Mister Allman sir, _but what's the worst that could happen? OK, so he did some crack, the result wasn't beautiful, _so what_? How is that gonna jeopardize anything?"

"It's gonna jeopardize _everything. _As long as we accept him as frontman of this band, he is the _face _of this band! Do we really want people to see _that _when they look at us?"

"Oh please, it's not like people actually give a fuck about us! Besides, he won't—"

"Oh, will you give it a rest!" I interrupted. I was so sick of hearing them. "Who gives a fuck about that idiot! He's just a fucking replacement! Jeph will be back soon and then we won't have to worry about anything. So just… let it be, Quinn! Alright?"

Ashton pressed his lips together. I couldn't tell whether he agreed with me or not, but I supposed he was glad I was sort of on his side. As for Quinn, he was staring at his shoes almost shamefully. I supposed he realised I was right.

But I supposed wrong. "What if that's not the case?" Quinn asked in a whisper, still looking down. "What if Jeph doesn't come back so soon, like you say? What if we really have to find a _permanent _replacement?" He looked up. I couldn't answer. I was so sick of having that same old conversation. "That's why it is _so_ important to make the right decision," Quinn explained.

I shook my head again—again. "Don't say that."

"You know…" Ashton started, "I think you have a point." I grunted. "But I still think Bert's not a bad idea," Ashton added to himself.

"No, no, no!" I shouted. I looked Ashton in the eye intently. "Jeph will be alright, alright!"

He didn't answer. We kept silent for a few long seconds as my words still echoed above us. Then, Quinn said he had to go back home 'cause his granma was waiting for him, and the meeting was adjourned.

But the questions remained.

* * *

Quinn.

When I got home—to the tiny house I shared with my poor old granma, a widow teetering on the edge of Alzheimer's—the last thing I wanted to do was talk to Bert. So of course, it was the first thing I did.

Not finding him on the first floor, I continued my search in the basement. As soon as I was on the stairs, I heard a faint music, almost inaudible, but clear enough that I was pretty sure I wasn't imagining it. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I could hear it clearly, but I couldn't tell where it came from right away. Then, looking around closely, I noticed the CD player was on, and then it clicked. That was one of our demos!

But why the hell was it playing? I quickly turned it off before something else caught my attention. A sheet of paper, lying above all the others on the "writing" table. _Demo #13. _The sheet was full. The writing was unfamiliar.

"_Maybe Memories_," I cited out loud, intrigued. "Huh." I read every line slowly, trying to figure it out. But the truth was I already knew the answer. I knew who had written that and why. After all, there weren't many options, and last time I'd seen my granma write a coherent sentence I was eight. "Oh, Berty," I muttered through my teeth.

I had to admit, it was good. It was smart and researched, not something written in five minutes. But my stubborn mind kept me from feeling any sympathy towards him. He could write as many songs as he'd want, it wouldn't make him less of a dick.

I laid the paper back on the table and continued looking around for him. I started worrying that he'd left again—even if that morning I'd left him a note which _strongly_ recommended that he stay inside—and then who knows what would happen this time? He could do drugs again, or get in trouble… or worse! I was sure Rachel would kill me if something really bad happened to him now.

"Bert?" I called in a shaky voice. "C'mon, man, where the fuck are you?"

I was about to go up the stairs again when I realised there was one more room I hadn't checked. OK, it was stupid, but it was possible. The laundry room.

It was small enough that you had to keep the door open when you were inside it 'cause if you didn't you'd be stuck between it and the washing machine. As soon as I opened the door, I was about to close it again because the room was empty, but at the last second I noticed something strange.

From the ceiling hung a rope, attached to one of the thickest pipes that emerged from the ceiling. It was made out of a bunch of wires, the kind I used to dry clothes, twisted together to make it thick and solid.

I gulped. That was bad. Very, very bad. At least there wasn't anyone hanging from it. Yet.

"Hey Quinn."

I jumped and knocked my elbow on the doorframe so hard I was sure I'd blown a hole through the wall. "OUCH! Fuck!" As soon as I was sure my forearm was still attached to the rest of my body, I looked down at him. He had been invisible, curled up into a ball between the wall on the right and the washing machine. There was a small space there where I sometimes shoved useless things—so I wouldn't have to throw them away in case I needed them later—but I didn't know there was enough space for a person!

"What the hell are you doing there, man?"

He ignored my question. "Sorry about your elbow." He paused. When I didn't react, he continued, "I was scared the pipe would blow under my weight," he explained dully, as if he was talking about the bad weather, "That's why I haven't tried it yet."

My jaw dropped. "Are you out of your fucking mind? Isn't one failed attempt enough?"

He nodded. "That's why I wanted to make extra-sure this one would be successful." I stared at him wide-eyed. His blank expression was the same one he'd had after the bathroom incident. Like he didn't give a fuck.

Suddenly, his face finally showed some emotion as he looked at me apologetically. It was still pretty mild though, almost fake. He was completely unrepentant. Of course. "Quinn…" he started, "are you gonna kick me out of the band?"

I was about to laugh in his face and give him the obvious answer when I realised something. If I kicked him out now, he would lose any reason to live. However, if I didn't…

My instinct yelled at me to get rid of him, to push him far away from me and everyone I cared about. And I could do that; all I had to do was confirm his fears—if he still had the capacity to feel fear—and he would do the dirty job himself. But did I really want that?

Now that I had this choice, that I had the power to decide with no one around to contradict me, did I really want to kill him?


	10. Chapter 10

10 Bert.

I closed my eyes.

Everything disappeared and was replaced by complete darkness. Outside and inside of me. I focused very hard and pictured a chair. In the middle of the darkness, lit up by some kind of spotlight.

I placed one foot on top of the chair and pulled myself up. I turned to face the front of the chair and adjusted my feet to make sure I held my balance. Once I was firmly standing on the chair, I reached in front of me for the rope. It was right there. I passed it around my neck. There was so fear, no hesitation—that was the whole point. I bent my knees and jumped as high and far in front of me as I could.

I opened my eyes. Immediately, the yelling of the crowd came back to me, so did the loud music and the bright spotlights. I stopped day-dreaming and flipped over at the last moment to be caught face-up by twenty sweaty hands. I smiled.

No, I had not hung myself, not just yet. For now, I was on the right track again, so suicide was once again off my to-do list. But day-dreaming about it had actually given me the courage to jump headfirst into the crowd—because killing myself seemed much easier to me than performing a common stage stunt. Yeah, I was weird enough for anything.

I supposed I had surprised everyone—including myself—and especially Branden who had bet that I wouldn't have the guts to do it. Of course, he underestimated the power of my imagination. Ha.

The crowd sure seemed to like it. And I couldn't lie, even if it was pretty painful and only lasted a few seconds, being carried around by dozens of people at once was _really_ fun. Yet another reason to live…

I waited for the crowd to put me back on the ground—or more like _drop_ me to the ground—before getting up and running back to the stage for one last ovation. I had managed to sing through ten songs, and honestly I had had enough. I think my painful throat agreed. I just wasn't experienced enough for that much shouting… But still, I had actually sung _all_ the songs I'd learned by now, and judging by Quinn's expression, it was already pretty good.

As soon as I'd gotten back on the stage—luckily, all the people blocking it moved to let me through, hallelujah—he came up to me and gave me a joyful tap on the shoulder. "Dude, you rock!" he praised happily. More than happily… he seemed almost euphoric. Huh, he was probably high.

And to think of all the shit I had to go through just so he and his band wouldn't kick me out. First, when we were still in the laundry room, Quinn had decided that it was better for him and everyone else that I left—the town, the country and the planet. Fucking selfish. But whatever, he was probably right.

Except that afterwards, when he told Branden and Ashton, they both freaked and accused him of taking decisions by himself without talking to them and blah, blah—all of that with me standing right there staring at them. And as if that wasn't enough, Rachel had then called Quinn and when he'd told her what he had decided—because of course, she wouldn't leave him alone until he did—she had added up to it by yelling at him stuff I didn't even wanna know. So, in the end, Quinn had no choice but to live with it—with _me_. Poor guy.

But hey, he didn't look so bummed right now.

* * *

Quinn.

Holy mother of God. And once again, I had been wrong. Or… maybe not wrong, because my arguments still stood—Bert was still an irresponsible junkie who could run off again at any moment and leave us stranded—but he could sure _sing_.

No, more than that, he could connect to the crowd and _entertain_ them! It was a strange phenomenon, actually, the way he transformed when he was on stage. He ceased to be that cynical asshole and became a really friendly and fun guy who could talk to people and get his message across. He became _Mr. Hyde_, like an alter ego or something, but in a good way.

I had witnessed that three times already, because this was his third show. It was also the longest show he'd done—and, to be quite honest, one of the longest _we_'d done too. Not that we hadn't had the resources, but with Jepha, it just wasn't the same. He couldn't do that so well, that connection thing, and people usually forgot we were there and moved on, or else we were attacked by groupies, or drunks, or drunk groupies, and that usually ended it.

Don't get me wrong, Jepha was an awesome guy, _outside of the stage,_ but he just wasn't good with talking to crowds. Too shy or something. And Bert was a pro. Like he'd done it for a lifetime.

But of course, I knew that, after all, it was only his third show.

And despite my happiness in front of our success with him, I was getting more and more worried. Because Jeph would come back soon—hopefully—and then what? We would have to choose between success and our best friend.

And I was so scared I would make the wrong decision again.

* * *

Bert.

"We. Are. Dumb Luck!" I yelled into the microphone with whatever voice I had left. Immediately, everyone responded with their screaming and clapping.

It was incredible. I felt so… important. And loved. I had never felt like that before, even when I was still living with my family, I had never felt so appreciated. So looked up to. And hell, I hadn't won the Nobel Peace Prize; all I'd done was sing a bunch of songs in a bar.

"Thank you guys! You guys are awesome!" No, it didn't take an inspiring speech to get everyone worked up over me again. It was just so easy… It was so beautiful that I felt almost as if I was in a different dimension. One where doing something you loved was good for you and actually got people to like you, not look down on you and call you a stupid junkie—with good reason. One where I was in the middle of everything, and not in the corner of an alley. One where I didn't have to feel ashamed, or scared. I didn't understand how normal people could be afraid of stages or speaking in public… I wanted to stay there forever.

"C'mon, Bert! Let's go!"

Aw… already? I looked towards where the voice had come from. Branden was standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the stage, looking up at me expectantly. Behind him, Quinn was watching patiently with a sort of fondness in his eyes and an understanding smile. He knew I couldn't get enough of the glory. But Branden was right, it was over now, I had to move on. Oh well, there was always next time.

I glanced one last time at the thinning crowd and waved goodbye before following my new bandmates. Pretty soon, everyone had gone back to their occupations—or had left—and it was as if nothing had happened.

"Guys, that was fucking awesome!" Ashton shouted, giving the three of us a friendly hug.

"Hey Quinn, you didn't mess up the solo this time!" Branden laughed.

"It was about time," Quinn replied happily. "You did good too, Branden… most of the time. Though at some point I was pretty sure you spotted a size ten and slowed down a bit." All three of them burst out laughing. "Oh, and by the way," Quinn continued, "I think you owe me ten bucks…" He smiled at me, presenting Branden his open hand.

Branden groaned and muttered that he didn't have any money on him. "Seriously Quinn, I hate you."

"Aw, don't worry Quinn," Ashton said, "I still love you…"

"Shit," Quinn said, sending everyone laughing again. Except me.

I just smiled and watched them in silence. They seemed so… connected, like they all thought the same way and laughed at the same jokes and loved the same things. Which was the case, actually, they really were connected. Like brothers. I would never have that.

I had to face the truth, all this would be over soon. Whether I liked it or not, Jeph would be back very soon and I would have to give him back his spot. But I guess it was OK, it was the right order of things… Then again…

And then, right then, in the middle of that thought, I saw her. That same shiny straight blond hair, those same big gray eyes surrounded by violet circles—resulting from drugs and lack of sleep—and too much makeup. That same lost gaze… My brain shut down for a moment as I stared at her with my mouth hanging open.

But no. _She isn't real, _I realised. She was just another illusion, just another hallucination. I shut my eyes and shook my head as if to shake her away. I couldn't let her drive me crazy again. If I started thinking about her, I would surely lose it.

But most of all, I knew that if I started seeing her, I would also start to see _him_. He would come back for me again, he would rip me away from my new life, from my new happiness, just like he had the first time. And I didn't want him to do that. Please, not again.

"Bert? You alright?"

I opened my eyes quickly. The three guys stared at me with concerned expressions.

"Uh, yeah… I'm fine," I muttered. They didn't seem very convinced. "I just… thought I saw someone… nevermind."

"Someone?" Quinn insisted.

"Just forget it!" I had said that just a little too loud. But I didn't have time to think about it. Right there, behind them, just a few yards away, she was still there…

So real. Hallucinations were never that authentic. Unless I had developed a supernatural imagination—even better than the one I had—she really _was_ real. But… that couldn't be.

No, it was impossible. She was dead, _he_ had killed her, I was sure that—

But wait a minute. I wasn't sure about anything. Somehow, through all my lunacy and my pessimism, I had managed to convince myself that she really _was_ dead, but in fact that was only a possibility—the worst case scenario. And if I believed my eyes in that moment, I knew that it hadn't happened.

Suddenly, I felt the terrible urge to run to her. To touch her again, to hear her beautiful voice… My legs responded immediately and I ran past Quinn, Branden and Ashton—and a few other people too—until I was close enough that I could almost touch her.

But then a giant brute appeared in front of me out of nowhere. I barely managed to stop myself before running into him. The guy must've been at least seven feet tall, and was covered in tattoos all the way to his ugly bald head. I could almost see him on a Harley Davidson with a leather jacket and a bag of cocaine—yeah, I'd seen a bunch like him before.

But when he turned and I could see his face, I was struck by the fact that he wasn't just any old drug dealer. He was… no. It couldn't be. I felt my heartbeat accelerate at a dangerous speed, sweat covering my palms. I took a shaky step back, praying that he wouldn't notice me. All I could think was, _No. Not this. _

It was _him_. I knew it. I could almost _feel_ his horrible presence. Was he real? Sure seemed like it. And he was approaching her. My beautiful angel… I couldn't let him hurt her. But I couldn't move. I was paralysed by the fear and the shock, and still confused. There was still a part of me that wasn't certain he was real, and if he wasn't, then she couldn't be either.

As I watched, petrified, he put his huge disgusting arm around her small shoulders casually, like she was his girlfriend of something. But by the way she reacted—flinching away and trying vainly to hide her disgust—it was clear that she had no pleasure being with him. I was suddenly scared that she had gone back to the way she was before I'd met her. Some fucker's sex slave, only for his money, because he kept her alive…

"That's some sexy ass you got there," _he_ told her then, lowering his arm. "Any chance I could see it without those shorts on there?"

And that's when I realised that it was different from what I'd thought. She didn't know him. But she didn't try to get away…

Of course. He was her potential client. I should've known.

But didn't she recognize him? Didn't she realize that it was _him_, the brute who had torn us apart? How could she let him even _approach_ her? She was so helpless. I had to do something…

"Hey, leave her the fuck alone," someone suddenly ordered. It took me a second to realise that it had been me.

_He_ slowly turned to face me. "You got a problem?"

I didn't know what to say. I stared up at him with my mouth hanging open stupidly, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now. He would kill me, for sure. He would kill us both. I noticed that several people around us had interrupted their conversations to watch the show, and their interest annoyed me all of a sudden.

"Leave him alone, fuckhead," the most beautiful voice in the world ordered then. She immerged from behind the biker like an angel, almost glowing.

"Aw c'mon, sweetheart…" the brute tried. She ignored him and took my hand. Then she smiled the sweetest smile and pulled me away from _him_, away from the bar, away from the world. Time stood still as she flew through the room, hauling me behind her.

Suddenly, she stopped to face me. An expression of great happiness mixed with deep sadness covered her face. It was as if she wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry. Judging by the way I felt in that moment, I suppose I looked the same.

Just as suddenly, she threw her arms around me and squeezed me until I couldn't breathe anymore. But I wanted her to squeeze harder.

Instead she loosened her arms a little to whisper "Nice show," in my ear as casually as she could, probably to break the silence. "But you made me lose my precious client…" she added with the most obvious sarcasm. I was too overwhelmed to answer. I just stood there with my arms wrapped around her, wondering if I was dreaming.

"Kate…" I finally whispered.

Out of nowhere, like she'd snapped out of some sort of trance, she pulled back and slapped me right across the face. "That's for disappearing!"

I took a second to understand what had just happened to me. Then I smiled again. "That was the best slap I ever got."

She chuckled. So perfectly. Gosh, she was so beautiful. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know it's my fault really, because instead of looking for you after our fight, I went straight back to Orem without giving you a clue as to where I could be… It was stupid of me not to tell you."

_I went straight back to Orem._

Oh my. Why hadn't I thought of that? "Of course! That's why you were nowhere in Salt Lake… You were in Orem." I chuckled at the simplicity of the situation, and at myself for not having figured it out. "It's kind of funny 'cause I looked _everywhere_ for you, except in the place where you most likely were."

She pressed her white lips together. "It's not your fault…" Then, she smiled again and took both my hands in hers. "I missed you so much, Bert."

I nodded. "Me too…" But I had done more than just miss her. "I'm so glad to know you're OK… I mean…" I looked down. "I thought I'd lost you."

Her smile faded. "Lost me? What do you mean?" Suddenly, comprehension replaced the confusion in her expression. "Oh, no… Were you scared I had overdosed…?" Her question was only a whisper, full of shame.

But I only frowned in confusion. "What? No! I didn't… I wasn't scared you'd _overdosed_, I mean, I know you would be careful enough…" I snickered unsurely. I hadn't even thought of that. "No, I meant, I was scared that… _he _ had gotten you." I glanced back towards the place we'd abandoned _him_, but he was gone.

This time, in was her turn to frown in confusion. "Who?"

I had to admit, "_he_" wasn't a very specific term. "Well, you know, the guy we just ditched, thankfully in one piece… who kicked us out of the apartment in Salt Lake…" She still seemed confused so I continued, "who was also the brother of the old dealer who used to… _have_ you. Before I killed him."

Her eyes widened in shock. "You _killed_ someone!"

"Well, yeah, I mean… you were there! When I stabbed the old guy! Don't you remember?" I was starting to feel a little annoyed.

She just shook her head slowly. "I remember when you stabbed the old motherfucker… in the _leg_! He didn't die! Though I wish he had."

I stared at her. _He didn't… die? _But… that was impossible! "But I… I killed him," I repeated helplessly, confused. "Because if I didn't kill him, why does his brother want revenge? Why does _he_ want with me?"

"What brother? That guy doesn't have a brother, to my knowledge."

"Yes, he does! I told you, it's the guy we just saw! The same guy who came after us later, who kicked us out of the apartment we'd rented, remember? The same guy I stole some crack from later, which was incredibly stupid of me… but you weren't there by then so you wouldn't remember."

For a second she hesitated, as if she didn't know what to say or how to say it. She looked like she pitied me for some reason—but everyone pitied me these days. "Bert…" she started, "that guy at the bar… I've never seen him before. We were kicked out of our apartment because we had run out of money… by the landlord. Or should I say the land_lady_! Yeah, it was a woman, remember? We even joked about her afterwards, 'cause she had some pounds to lose there… you know, before our fight. Don't you remember?"

I shook my head. She wasn't making any sense. "That's impossible…"

"And Bert," she continued, "you didn't kill anyone! That guy you think you killed, Orem's famous old drug-dealer, he's _fine_. Actually he's better than ever; drugs are practically more popular than pets these days… And he doesn't have a fucking brother! And if he does, he sure as hell didn't come for us in Salt Lake City." She sighed. "I guess… I guess you must've imagined it all."


	11. Chapter 11

11 Bert.

I had imagined it all?

Well, Kate sure seemed to think that.

But it was impossible! I remembered clearly stabbing the dealer from Orem and killing him, thus freeing her. I remembered clearly how his brother had come for us once we had moved to Salt Lake for his revenge, but we'd escaped in time… I remembered stealing from him later, because he'd been such an easy target… I just… remembered…

Or did I? What did I remember, exactly? Holding the knife. Attacking the old guy with it. Running off with Kate… But no one dying. I didn't remember that. I had just been so certain that it had happened… or had I?

Before Kate and I split up, before letting the cocaine take over, had I really been so certain I was a murderer? I did not remember feeling that way at all.

And then there was that apartment story… Kate assumed it was the landlady who kicked us out because we'd stopped paying rent. Which made much more sense than my story, in which we had been chased by some crazy dude who wanted to kill us 'cause I'd killed his brother. And considering that I hadn't really killed his brother, my story made even less sense.

Finally, there was that last part. I had already starting doing crack like crazy by then, and one day I had run into that same guy… but had it really been _him_, or just some ugly fuck standing in my way?

Just a few minutes ago, at the bar, had it really been _him_… or just some ugly fuck standing in my way?

Did _he _even exist?

I had to focus, I had to remember. To remember _clearly_ stuff that was _real_, and not just hallucinations and dramatizations, fragments of my imagination.

Holding the knife. The adrenaline. My heart beating like crazy. My will to save Kate, to deliver her from the hell she was in. I remembered those clearly. And then, I had run at him and I had stabbed him…

In the leg. He'd screamed like fuck, and then I'd knocked him out. Kate had spat on his face. And we'd left him there.

But now he was fine. Not six feet under. Of course.

It was very clear all of a sudden. We'd moved to Salt Lake City with the money we'd managed to steal from the dealer, and then we'd spent it all in just a few weeks and a few more weeks later the fat little landlady had come to send us back to the street, where we belonged. After that we had had a fight, we'd lost each other. Failing to find her, I had slowly replaced her with drugs, filling the hole she had left, and slowly this ghost had started appearing inside me. _Him._

I had started imagining things. I was constantly afraid, exhausted, sad and alone, and in response my brain had created this monster, this _man_ that mainly represented everything I was afraid of. A "man" who only came to haunt me when I was on the wrong track, when I started doing drugs again and losing everything that was important. _He_ had almost been some kind of warning against me ruining my life. The way he menaced to kill me, to kill Kate… it was my punishment for being stupid and irresponsible, a punishment I had myself created.

I understood now. I had seen the light. Hallelujah.

I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I had learned my lesson, and I had no reason to be worried anymore. I was free.

And best of all, I had Kate. She was still standing in front of me, waiting patiently for my response to her disturbing revelations.

But for only response, I gently took her face between my hands and softly kissed her cold, pale lips.

* * *

Quinn.

The phone call I received the next day was probably the best thing that had ever happened to me in my whole life and beyond.

And to think I almost ignored it. But then my grandma urged me to snap out of my trance-like state of productive concentration in which I was every time I worked on our music and answer the goddamn phone. So I did.

"Quinn Allman?" a male voice asked from the other side of the telephone line.

"Yeah," I confirmed detachedly.

"Oh great!" He chuckled. "You don't know what I had to go through to put my hands on your phone number! You're lucky I didn't give up…"

Uh… what the fuck? "I'm sorry, who is this?"

"Oh pardon my rudeness! My name is John Feldmann, A&R executive at Warner Bros. Records, and you, my friend, are a very lucky and very talented man."

It took me a second to comprehend what he'd just said. "John Feldmann… as in Goldfinger?" My first reaction was, of course, disbelief. "You're kidding." And then, half a second later, confusion. "Wait, why are you calling me? What is this?"

Mr. Feldmann chuckled again and said in a fatherly tone, "I understand your surprise, Quinn. But you see, I've been following your little band for a while now, and you haven't ceased to impress me. I have to say it's rather rare that I spent so much time over a single band, but when I do, it's never for the wrong reasons."

I was too bewildered to answer. I was too bewildered to breathe. I gulped as I slowly comprehended what was happening to me. This man… this man was what I'd been hoping and praying for for a while now, even if I never told any of the guys because it was practically forbidden to hope for so much—and I knew that the others, especially Jepha, were not really keen to the idea of become rich and famous. But this phone call changed _everything_. They could not say _no_ now. As a matter of fact, I didn't even consider they would.

"I listened to your little CD," he continued, "_Demos from the Basement_, very original title by the way!" He laughed. I couldn't move. How the hell had he managed to get his hands on that? We only had one copy, and it was lying somewhere on the floor in Branden's basement right now. Unless… "I have to say man, it was wicked stuff. I particularly liked the one about the sharp objects…"

I was only listening halfway to what he was telling me. I kept thinking… _Branden! What the fuck did you do?_

Here's the story: over the past week or so, Bert changed. Drastically. I was pretty sure it had something to do with that hot chick named Kate. Anyway, he lost the constant frown that usually flashed all over his face and replaced it with a dangerously contagious smile. He also stopped doing exactly what we told him and settled for telling us what to do instead—which annoyed me a bit—and in the end, he inspiring-speech-ed us into re-recording our demos with him singing. _Demos from the Basement _was born. From four _beautiful_ mothers.

Ashton loved it. Branden loved it secretly, but he pretended to think it was shit—who could blame him? It was in his nature. I, for one, though half-heartedly that it was one of the best things we'd ever done, which resulted in a conscience tantrum composed of one word: _Jepha_. In English, I felt bad because we were becoming a real band without the most important member of that band.

And now somehow, despite the many times Branden had told me about how "fuckin' important it is for us to stay together and be our fuckin' selves and never let money change us or tear us apart, man" that little CD had ended up in the mailbox of Mr. John Feldmann, who, in my wildest dreams, would make us fucking famous.

Then again, there was still a part of me that wasn't completely sure I wasn't dreaming.

Finally, I decided to break the silence and convince that last part of skeptical conscience. "So… Are you gonna like… s—sign us or something?" Gosh, I sounded stupid.

"If you wish, of course," he answered immediately. Conscience convinced. "But I hope you do, I mean the world is really missing out on something here. Oh and, before I forget, that new vocalist of yours… wow! I mean, he can _sing_! I hope he's there to stay!"

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh Jepha, if only you were here!

"Hello?" Mr. Feldmann called. "Are you there?"

"Y—Yeah, I'm r—right here," I stammered.

"Alright, so I was hoping we could meet sometime, talk about the contract and all, if that's OK with you. How about tomorrow at four? Is that too soon?"

I tried to focus on his words in order to come up with a decent answer. After all, I didn't want him to think I was some kind of emotionally unstable retard. "Mr. Feldmann sir, it is_ never_ too soon."

* * *

Rachel.

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

"Chelly! Not so loud!" I heard him laugh through the phone. I ignored his request and yelled even louder.

"EEEEEEEEHHH! Ohmygod you just got _signed_!" I pointed out the obvious once I was done with the monosyllabic screeching. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I can't believe it!" It was true. I _couldn't _believe it.

"Me neither! But it's true!" He paused. "Wait a minute, we are _not _signed yet, we just have a rendez-vous with an A&R executive at the biggest record company in the universe!" His voice was higher with every word.

"Exactly!" I felt like crying then. This whole thing was so crazy. I kinda' felt stupid then for thinking that Quinn would never fulfill his dream. And happy that I had been dead wrong.

After we both calmed down—it took me a bit longer than him, I had to admit—he said solemnly, "Rachel, I'm worried."

"Why? C'mon, I'm sure the meeting will go _just _fine…"

"No, I'm not talking about the meeting." I frowned, confused. "I'm talking about Jepha," he revealed.

"Oh." He didn't have to say more. He'd repeated the conversation with _Mr._ Feldmann—Quinn considered it important to remain formal and polite when talking about a deity—word by word, including the part where _Mr. _Feldmann—I considered it a bit useless to not call him just "John" when he wasn't around—said "That new vocalist of yours… wow! I mean, he can _sing_! I hope he's there to stay!"

I had to say the message was pretty clear. The problem was that "that new vocalist of yours" had to eventually leave his spot to its rightful owner, _Mr. _Jepharee Howard—alright, that was unnecessary—once he would come out of the hospital. And I was pretty sure that _Mr. _Feldmann would not agree.

I heard Quinn sigh heavily into the phone. "We can't let Bert go anymore… especially after what he's done for us. I mean, let's face it, if it wasn't for him, we would not be having this conversation."

"True," I agreed. "And just for the record, if you kick him out of this band now, he is going to either kill himself or do drugs past the point of no-return, which is pretty much the same thing." I made it sound so casual, but deep down I felt it sting. That horrible truth. That band was Bert's life-support. And I didn't care what Quinn thought, I would _never _let anyone take it away from him. So sure, he'd gotten Kate back, he'd gotten rid of that imaginary friend of his—which ended up being truly imaginary, just like I'd thought—but that didn't mean something else wouldn't come after, and I wasn't willing to take that chance. It was too late to go back now.

But I didn't express my thoughts for fear that Quinn would be angry with me. After all, Jeph was far more important to him than my lame-ass little brother. So in the end, the best I could come up with was, "Well… I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"Yeah, I'm sure we will." He sure didn't sound sure. "Hey Chelly?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

I smiled. "Me too."

* * *

Ashton.

"You are _not_ going to spend the rest of your life in an irresponsible little band, young man!" Mom repeated severely.

"But this is my fucking dream—"

"Watch your language! See? That's what this is doing to you! Turning you into some vulgar… badboy!"

I frowned. She had no idea what she was talking about. "Mom… This is who I _am_, I mean, this is where I _belong_…"

"You're wrong. You belong in college! What's the matter with you? You've always dreamed of being a schoolteacher!" Yeah, when I was in fifth grade. "What happened?"

"I grew up!" I sighed. I couldn't believe Mom had infiltrated my stinky little home in Orem to tell me about leaving my band, my life, behind. I thought that she'd decided to let me be after I'd made it clear enough that I didn't want to go back to school, that it was_ useless_ to me! I had run away from my house after grad and lived at Quinn's for a while until I'd managed to get my own place—a filthy old basement some Russian lady put up for rent. I hadn't heard from my parents until now, and though I missed them, I knew that if they came to me it would only be for one reason.

"Ash, you must come back home…"

"But this is my home now! This place, these guys… they're my family!"

She seemed hurt. I couldn't blame her. I guessed I wasn't her _perfect_ _little boy _anymore, and it probably pissed her off too much. Her eyes almost seemed to water under her weird pointy glasses, but I didn't care. I didn't want to care, anyways.

"Ash… what can I do to convince you? How many times do I have to explain that being in a band is not the best way to make a living? Already, it's obvious that you're so… poor. Just look around!" Yeah, so? Like I didn't know that living like this was hard. But I was happy! "Don't you remember all those things you told me about your future, how you would become the best teacher in the world?" She smiled faintly. "You used to get all the best grades, you were such a smart young man! You had a future. And you just threw it away."

I grunted. There was just no way she could understand. Yeah, so I had been a nerd. Great. So? That didn't mean I had to become a surgeon. I was doing what I loved, and it was great! And I just knew we wouldn't become just a tiny failure of a band, I knew we would go somewhere, especially now that we had Bert.

My phone rang then, and I quickly grabbed it, thanking God that it had chosen that precise moment and I didn't have to come up with another useless explanation. "Hello?"

"Ash! It's Quinn. OK, you'll never guess who just called!"

"Uh…"

He didn't give me time to guess. "Mr. John Feldmann!"

"Mr. John who?" He sounded so excited that it must have been a very important person, but that name didn't quite ring a bell. … Maybe he'd won the lottery or something!

"Feldmann! From Goldfinger! From Warner fucking Records!" I almost expected him to fangirl-screech right there.

And then my mouth popped open. "What did he want?"

"A blowjob. What the fuck do you think he wanted! Oh my God Ash, this is like the third time I announce it but it's still just as fucking exciting! We're gonna be signed!" Insert other fangirl screech here. "Well, I mean, it's not for _sure_, but we've got a meeting with this guy tomorrow at four!"

A subtle smile crept to my lips and I shot a triumphal look at Mom even if she had no idea what was happening. This time, she would have no valid argument.

* * *

Quinn.

OK. Deep breath. This is it. I can do this. Wipe the sweat off my forehead…

OK, I was being overdramatic. It was just one in the afternoon and I still had three hours to wait. Heh.

I unconsciously crumpled the paper with Mr. Feldmann's phone number between my palms before suddenly realising what I was doing and straightening it again as much as I could. I was so excited I couldn't think. I had done nothing but sit on my couch and watch my gandma knit all morning, and I was still there. Oh, and my legs kept moving on their own. I won't lie, they kinda' annoyed me.

There was a knock on the door. I jumped and quickly remembered that I was indeed expecting someone. I got up and went to open the door. Rachel had called half an hour earlier to announce she'd be here in half an hour. So if my calculations were correct, behind the door stood my love, my life, my best friend, my crazy little freak, my adorable little…

"Jepha!"

"Quinn!" He jumped in my arms like he hadn't seen me in weeks. … Wait, he hadn't. "Never drink and drive, man," he told me as he slowly let go of me, "it's fucking dangerous."

Was I dreaming? Was Jeph Howard, my best fucking friend in the whole universe, really standing right outside my doorway? Unless I had passed out due to my overexcitement and I was now dreaming, it sure seemed like it.

After the shock came the spur of happiness. "Oh my God, man…" I was _so_ relieved to know that he was OK. For fuck's sake, the number of times I'd almost had a panic attack only at the thought of him never coming back! "You're fuckin' alive!" I huffed and let out a short giggle. This was crazy.

"Yeah… not sure though. I might be a brain-eating zombie."

I laughed and hugged him again. Man, I had missed him so bad. "So… what happened? How's it been at the hospital? Weren't you in a coma?"

"Well, I snapped out of it like a week ago, but they wouldn't let me go. Had to do some tests, you know. They checked my brain and all that. Of course, they were all surprised when the film turned out blank… 'Cause obviously I _have _no brain!" He snickered. "All jokes aside though, turns out I'm perfectly fine. Good as new, and lacking just as much sense of humor."

"Huh, wow…" In the temporary silence that followed, everything came back to me. Rachel, Bert, John. "You have a lot of catching up to do, man." I said, slowly shaking my head. I kept myself from adding _We are in deep shit._


	12. Chapter 12

12 Bert.

"Hey mothafuckers!" I loved making a grand entrance. Granted, I hadn't always, but I was a changed man.

"Yo, Berty!" Branden greeted me with a fist bump and a flashing smile. "You aren't late this time!"

"I know right? Fuckin' miracle. C'mon, don't I get a standing ovation?" I turned towards Ashton, Quinn and Rachel, who were all sitting on this puny couch squished like sardines—though I bet Roach was lovin' the proximity—staring at me like I'd just burned down the White House. "Uh… maybe not," I muttered. "What'd I do?"

"Aw, don't mind them," Branden said, "They're just being pessimistic about all this Jepha shit…"

I frowned. "What Jepha shit? Did the situation make any progress while I was busy uh… catching up with Katie?"

"Yes Rob, the situation made a shitload of progress while you were busy screwing Kate," Rachel answered severely. I hated it when she called me "Rob." Made me feel old and wrinkly. She sighed. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault." She sighed again. What the hell was happing in here? "Why don't you come over here and meet a very special person."

I accepted her invitation and walked over to her hesitantly. "You don't actually want me to sit on this couch," I wondered in disbelief once I reached her. "I am not spaghetti."

"Turn around."

I was scared all of a sudden. Who was that "special person" of hers? I hoped it was human. I turned around to face a guy sitting on a tall rocking chair opposite of the couch—which explained why I hadn't seen him in the first place; he'd been hidden by the back of the chair. He was tall, and looked pretty cool. He was covered in tattoos and piercings, but his face had a sort of wisdom to it, which in the end gave him a pretty funny look. I already liked him.

"You must be Bert." He held out his hand and I shook it energetically, happy to know the "special person" wasn't a man-eating alien-vampire.

"And you…" And then it clicked. Gosh, I was so stupid. "…must be Jepha!" Ah, the triumphal joy of good guesses!

"Yup… Now I think we have a little something to talk about, huh?" I felt intimidated all of a sudden. He really looked like he knew what he was talking about.

"Uh… OK?" I gave him my nicest smile, but in vain. He still looked death-struck. Man, this guy was hard to pierce—haha, bad pun.

He sighed and invited me to take a seat on the couch which was now magically empty. I did as he said and stared at him expectantly.

"Now, I think you're aware that these guys," he gestured towards Quinn, Ash and Branden who had gathered next to us with funeral-faces—except Branden, he still looked pretty excited. "These guys are my bandmates. And those songs you've been singing are _my _songs." Oh… so that's where he was getting at. "Your sister told me you were sensible," What? "so I don't wanna be rude… but seriously man, you can't just, pop out of nowhere and replace me!"

This time, any trace of smile vanished from my face. I made sure it had. "Dude… this was never my choice. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I've never even _wanted_ to be in this band, so I don't know why you're blaming me—"

"Great then!" he interrupted. "I guess you won't mind giving me back my life then."

My heart sank.

Now? After all this shit? After everything I'd been through, I'd finally managed to suck it up and turn things around, and all because of this _band_. If it wasn't for this, I would've never found the courage to keep going, I would've never found Kate. And he wanted me to just leave?

"I can't do that. These guys need me! And I need them! They're _my _bandmates too, and it's because of me if we even have this fucking contract!" I clenched my fists. From the corner of my eye, I saw Quinn look down in shame. I was right and he knew it. I turned to him and continued, "You can't just hire me and make do shows and demos and lyrics for you and get you fucking attention and then just throw me away once you're done with me!"

"You got your money," Quinn muttered.

"I don't give a fuck about money! This is my _life,_ Quinn!"

"This is _his_ life too!" Quinn replied. Rachel took his hand and rested her head on his shoulder to make it clear enough that she was on his side.

"How can you do this to me Roach? You sucked me into this! And now you're spitting me out like I'm… like I'm…" I was out of ideas. "I should've known," I added instead.

She stared at me, her mouth hanging open stupidly. "Bert, I…" I waited for her to continue, but nothing came.

"Fuck this." I got up promptly and headed for the door. "You people are so sick. You fucking _used_ me! I hope you're aware of that."

"Bert, wait!" Branden called. "Feldmann will never want us without you! I'm still on your side, bro!"

"Well, that's your fucking problem." And I slammed the door behind me.

* * *

Rachel.

"Ugh!" Without thinking, I kicked the coffee table next to the couch so hard that it flipped over and crashed into the wall. The vase that had been carefully placed on it fell to the ground and smashed into a million little pieces, spilling all the water and the pretty little daisies all over the floor. "Oh, shit, I'm so sorry."

"It's OK," Quinn answered immediately with a patent disinterest. He sighed. "We need to get him back. At least for the meeting. Or else our contract's fish food!"

"And then what?" Branden asked. "We kick him out again and go 'Oops!' once we're in a studio in LA!"

For my part, it was less their contract that worried me than my brother's future. It had never been my intention to give the impression that I was on Quinn's side. I just loved him too much and hated to see him angry. In fact, I was in complete disagreement with Quinn, but that was only because I didn't really care about Jeph. And Quinn didn't really care about Bert.

I looked around. Branden was obviously on Bert's side. He loved Bert, they got along so well together. But then again Branden wasn't the most clear-minded person… Jeph was obviously on Jeph's side, there was no doubt there. And Ashton… he just seemed so silent. Of course, he was always rather subdued, but today he hadn't said a word. He seemed preoccupied by something, something that had nothing to do with our whole problem. But maybe I was just imagining things.

"That's it, I'm going to get him back," I announced then, starting towards the door with a forced confidence. I just prayed he would still listen to me.

* * *

Bert.

Fuck this shit. Fuck this place. Fuck these people. Fuck everything!

I hoped that Feldmann guy would be disappointed. I hoped this screwed them up so bad they would never forget. I didn't care about them anymore. I didn't care about my relationship with any of those double-crossers. All I wanted was to run far away from all this shit with the only person I could truly trust. Kate.

And then, as I was angrily crossing the dried-out lawn, a sexy black Mercedes parked in front of the house, making all the other cars look even more like old scrap. I was almost happy I didn't own any of those fossils, therefore I didn't have to feel embarrassed.

And out of the shiny car came a man in the mid-thirties, elegant but not overdone. His face carried a sort of peace, and he looked much friendlier than I would've imagined.

"Oh, hello there!" He said as soon as he spotted me. I froze. Shit, I hadn't had time to run away! "I'm John Feldmann. You're, uh, the new guy, right? What's your name again?"

Shit, shit, shit! Gotta say something. "Uh… Bert."

He flashed a huge white smile. Sheesh, I'd only told him my name and he looked like he'd just become a father. "Hi then, Bert!" Yeah, you already greeted me.

There was an awkward silence while we just stood there. He was still smiling. With my old dirty t-shirt and my old dirty bermudas, I felt like a homeless guy next to him and his clean little shirt.

Oh wait, I _was_ a homeless guy.

"So…" John started, his smile slowly fading, "what were you doing out here anyways?"

Running away from a bunch of dipshits who couldn't even admit they were dipshits. "I, uh, forgot something in my car," I said quickly, pointing towards one of the rusty piles of metal in front of me, the one I was pretty sure was Rachel's. "But it's not important. Wanna come inside?"

No, no, no! What the fuck was I doing? I didn't want to go back inside! I wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as fucking possible! So then why the hell had I just invited him inside? Somebody please slap me.

"Sure!" John smiled again as we walked back towards Quinn's pathetic residence.

But hey, I didn't really have the right to call it pathetic, considering that my present residence was a motel room.

* * *

Quinn.

We watched in silence as Rachel took a deep breath and laid a hand on the door handle. She was about to go get her brother back when a phone rang and made everyone jump. Automatically, I reached for my cellphone, but it wasn't mine that had rung.

"Hello?" Ashton said, revealing who the culprit was. "Mom? Oh, hey…" He seemed to become kind of pale then, and I suddenly worried he might faint. Wow, how bad was his mom? Slowly though, he seemed to regain confidence before quickly leaving the room for some privacy.

I turned back to Rachel who turned back to the door to finally open it. But she barely even took a step out that she ran straight into a tall man with a serene face… Oh, shit.

They muttered scattered apologies and Rachel quickly came back inside.

"Did you forget something in your car too, beautiful?" Mr. Feldmann asked her with a cunning smile.

Rachel frowned in confusion—like pretty much everyone else—before quickly regaining herself with a small giggle. "No, I was just going out to look for…" She seemed to notice something—or someone—behind Mr. Feldmann. "… my brother," she completed.

And in came Bert, shooting me a poisonous glare. "Hey, Quinn," he said sweetly, though his eyes still burned holes through my very being.

"Hey… Bert." I had to keep from saying "Hey, asshole." _Act natural, _I told myself. _Just act natural._

"Oh my!" Mr. Feldmann suddenly exclaimed. My heart skipped a beat. "What the hell happened here?" He laughed and pointed the wrecked coffee table lying in a puddle of water and ruined flowers.

"Oh, that?" Rachel forced a laugh and threw me a panicky look. "I, uh…"

"She tried sitting on it, and it flipped over," I improvised. "Heh. Because, you know, there was no more space on the couch…"

When Rachel and I made eye contact again, I thought she was gonna run at me and punch me in the face. OK, so maybe it was physically impossible for the table to flip over like that, and maybe I had just made her sound like an idiot, but what? If she could've come up with something better, why hadn't she?

"Uh… OK," Mr. Feldmann said unsurely. "Well, that's bad luck!" He smiled again and invited us all over to the couch as if nothing had happened. But when he arrived there, yet another surprise awaited him.

Jeph hadn't moved from his seat since Bert had gotten here, so he once again seemed to appear out of nowhere for the new guest. "Hello, Mr. Feldmann."

* * *

Jeph.

"Hello, Mr. Feldmann." I sounded like the creepy evil dude who always pops out of nowhere when you least expect him. Not a good first impression.

Feldmann eyed me for a second before his face lit up. "You're Jeph, right? The, um, other vocalist." He smiled again, a spark brightening his clever eyes.

I forced a smile too. Maybe I could make him forget the first impression I gave. But something told me he hadn't really been impressed by it. He was looking way past that, and he was seeing through me like I was a piece of glass. I almost had a feeling he already knew exactly what had happened before his arrival.

Either way, it was time to clear things out. Now that he was here, the conversation was much more delicate, and my bandmates couldn't deny me anymore without risking the way he saw them. "Yeah, that's me," I confirmed slowly. "You see, Mr. Feldmann, now that I'm back, Mr. McCracken over here is going to move and give me my spot back." I sure hoped so, anyway. I glanced at each person in the room for their reaction. Quinn was quickly erasing a grimace off his face, Rachel was staring at me with lasers shooting out of her pupils, Brendan was looking down sadly and Bert looked like he was floating on a cloud in his imaginary happy place, completely absent. As for John, he looked unmoved, as always. This guy was good.

With the most controlled calm, John said, "So, if I understand well, Bert here will _not_ be part of this band anymore?"

"He never was," I muttered. It was a wrong move to say that, triggered only by my jealousy, but my words were quickly covered by Branden's.

"Yes, he will," he stated firmly. "Jepha got it all wrong!" Branden, please don't be an idiot. "Before you arrived, sir, we had just decided that it was better for all of us to keep Bert with us. And Jeph had also agreed." Oh, so he wasn't being an idiot. Just a filthy liar. "I don't know why he oh so suddenly changed his mind! I'm sure you agree too," he added, looking John in the eye intently.

Brendan, you dick. I had to do something. "No, I never—" I started, but Rachel interrupted me harshly.

"So Bert will remain the main vocalist," she declared, in case Branden hadn't been clear enough. But who the hell was she to decide? Why was everyone against me? "and Jeph will..." her voice trailed off into uncertainty.

Jeph will what? Leave? Go jump off a cliff? I bet they all wanted it. This was so wrong! They had no right to do this to me. This was MY band, I had created it. Me, Brendan, Ashton and Quinn, my best friend. My best friend who didn't do anything to help me out. My best friend who just stood there and watched me as my whole life slipped between my fingers.

I would never drive drunk again.

* * *

Quinn.

Jeph kept his eyes on Rachel, waiting for her to continue her sentence but knowing she wouldn't. There was nothing she could say. There was no solution to this dilemma. We were trying to solve a puzzle with one piece too much.

And then of course, there was Mr. Feldmann who followed our every move like a Fed. I felt like everything I did, from clenching my fists to blinking, was some kind of crime. I felt entirely guilty for everything that was happening. I had betrayed my best friend, but if I tried to repair it I would betray my love.

I realised then that the choice wasn't only between friendship and success. It was also between the trust of both of my best friends, Jepha and Chelly. Helping one was losing the other. But which could I stand to lose?

Jeph looked down then, shaking his head slowly. "This band is all I have. It's my family," he muttered. "And there is nothing worse than thinking they would… they would… _use_ me like this. Replace me. Use me and replace me when they're done with me!" He looked at me and I looked away. I couldn't bear to hold his gaze even for a second.

_Use_ him. Dammit, everyone felt fucking used around here! It could practically be a new name for our fucking band! First Bert, now Jeph, and deep down I was starting to believe them. Maybe I _had_ used them. Was I really so horrible? I'd only wanted what was best for us, for all of us. But you can't always please everyone.

"So…" Brendan started then, "what about Jeph?" He turned to Rachel but she avoided his glance. There was no point in trying to get an answer from her. It was my job to find that answer.

But this time, I really didn't know.

* * *

Jeph.

"Jepha will continue being part of this band," a familiar voice stated then, breaking the desperate silence. Everyone turned surprisingly towards Ashton who had just come back from his phone call. "As the new bassist. He's always wanted to be a bass player." He smiled at me.

What? Yeah, I loved playing bass, but it was beside the point. It was not my role. I had never even thought of it, because I, for one, didn't find it acceptable to steal someone else's job when they deserved it.

I felt like chuckling all of a sudden. Ash was like the little kid who makes everyone happy somehow when nothing else works. Unfortunately, this was ridiculous. "Ash, I appreciate it, but—"

Branden cut me off again then, as if I wasn't worth listening to. "But Ash... What about you?" he asked. Seriously, Branden, I was capable of asking that myself!

Before Ashton could reply, Bert took a step forward and raised his hands to get our attention. I hadn't noticed that he's snapped out of his daydream. "Dude, dude... You don't have to do this," he told Ash with a bleak smile. Then, he took a few seconds to look each of us in the eye. "Seriously, I'm sorry for reacting so badly before, I mean you guys were right; this is Jeph's rightful place, and I'm not here to steal it."

I raised my eyebrows. What, now he was sorry? He seemed pretty honest though. I suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable inside.

"Mr Feldmann, I'm sure you're pretty confused right now..." Bert guessed.

"Actually, this is the most fun I've had in the past few months." He was grinning ever wider now, with a careless easiness.

Bert grinned back and continued, "But the truth is, Jeph just recovered from his accident and we never really, like, had the time to work this out, but since we didn't wanna give the wrong impression, we all just pretended we knew what we were talking about."

"Bert!" Rachel squeaked.

Feldmann chuckled. "Guys, I knew you were making all that shit up. It's obvious!" I could almost feel the blood heating behind my cheeks then. What a bunch of idiots we made. "It's quite funny how everyone's always scared of people like me like we're gonna bite their heads off if they make one little mistake," he continued. Tilting his head sideways thoughtfully, he added, "A bit sad though..."

"So..." Rachel started hesitantly, "In conclusion?"

"Everything will remain as it was before the accident," Bert declared. "Take it or leave it Mr Feldy."


	13. Chapter 13

13 Quinn.

"Everything will remain as it was before the accident," Bert declared. "Take it or leave it Mr Feldy."

I sighed loudly. And there went my dream, pulverised into dust. Mr. Feldmann eyed us glumly. I just wanted to hide away and cry like a little girl. But at least… at least the choice was made. At least I wasn't torn between my options anymore.

It was over. Bert would leave, and Mr. Feldmann would follow him like a stalker until he managed to get him into a band somewhere. But it wouldn't be us. Our contract was gone. Poof! No more. I wondered how Rachel would react. I supposed she wouldn't be angry at me though, since her brother had made the choice himself.

But still, I felt crushed. This was everything I had ever dreamed of, or at least my only chance to get it, and it had vanished with Bert's words, leaving me empty. I could feel my heart sinking slowly into some deep dark hole, and for a second I almost felt the urge to say something, to stop all this. But of course, it would be stupid. Everything was over, I had to suck it up.

And then, out of nowhere, the sky opened up, the angels sang and the light descended to the ground. In other words, Ashton spoke.

"No," he said. "No, no, no. You've got it all wrong!" He chuckled and flashed a peaceful smile. "I was on the phone with my mom right now, and after a long conversation and a lot of begging, I've decided that I'm going to college."

I felt my eyes widen on their own. He was... leaving us?

"So I voluntarily donate my spot to Jepha. I hope you appreciate." He smiled again, so innocently.

"Ash, I... Don't leave, not for me," Jeph said softly.

"It's not for you, dumbass." He was entirely serious. "It's for me, and for my mom. And of course, if it helps this band, that's always a plus."

Everyone stared at him wide eyed. "You mean…" Rachel started hesitantly, "you would've left the band either way? Even if all this crap with my brother had never happened?" She was doubting the truth in that.

He sighed. "Well… yeah, I'd always seen it coming. I just, never mentioned it and tried my best to convince myself that it wasn't." He shrugged. "But I guess I can't hide forever."

"Wow." All the doubt in Rachel's expression disappeared under a relieved smile. "Awesome! You'll see, college rocks!" She winked at him and gave him a thumbs up. He mirrored her with a wide smile.

I still couldn't believe he'd said that. I had nothing against college, but he couldn't just _leave_. He'd been around since the very beginning, and he was, well, our bassist! I just… had never imagined that he would leave! It was all so unexpected, and it left me gawking.

But then, it was all good. It allowed both Jepha and Bert to stick around, and even though he'd never said it out of pure respect, I knew that Jepha had always preferred playing bass than singing—really, just by the faces he made when he heard his own singing voice or when his throat made him suffer… It was actually quite hilarious. And Ash had just… fixed it. Everything. Everyone was happy. This was more than I could ever have hoped for.

Finally, Mr. Feldmann broke the silence. "Well then, I guess that's settled then! So, recap!" He pointed Brendan, "Drums," His finger switched swiftly to me, "guitar," He pointed his thumb at Jepha, "bass, and..." Lowering both hands, he looked at Bert. With an accomplice wink, he concluded, "lead vocals."

Bert kept his eyes down, clenching and unclenching his fists. Finally, he looked up at me and smiled, his light blue eyes shining in the faint light of the ceiling lamp. I couldn't help but smile back.

Then, to make everything even better, Mr. Feldmann added, "I hope you guys like LA."

* * *

Bert.

_Los Angeles, _I thought to myself yet again. I was going there. Me. That worthless junkie everyone tried their best not to notice. I was going to _be_ something. For the first time in my life, I actually felt truly happy. Truly complete, and even a little excited. This shit was far from over…

After we settled everything with Feldy, Quinn left to check on his grandma, and I took advantage of it to go talk to him in private—I didn't really care if his grandma was there, it was like talking in the presence of a vegetable.

"Quinn?"

"Hey, man," he muttered, picking up the scarf his grandma had just dropped. "Here's your scarf, mammy."

His grandma gazed at it like it was an engagement ring. "What's this? Oh thank you so much, baby, that's so nice of you!" She looked honestly thrilled. "Where's Henry? I have to show him this."

Quinn expression didn't change. "He's out. He'll be back soon." He smiled and turned to me. "Sorry about that, she's got Alzheimer's." The old lady didn't react. She looked lost, eons away from us.

"That Henry guy, he's your grandpa?"

He nodded. "He _was_."

"Oh, is he..."

"Yeah."

"Oh." Awkward. I waited for the silence to sink in a bit and began, "Listen, I just came here to say, uh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he replied immediately. "It's because of you that all this awesome shit is even happening to us! I should be sorry, not you. For, you know, hating you for no reason at all."

I snickered. "If I had a dollar for everyone who hates me, I'd be richer than the pope. So honestly, I don't really mind anymore."

"But I'm still sorry," He insisted. "I think all those people should be."

I raised my eyebrows. He was terrifyingly sincere. My throat knotted up. "Wow. Thanks," I croaked. "Uh... Apology definitely accepted." I paused. "So we're cool?"

He smiled. "We're cool."

Awkward silence. Again.

"So," I started, "now do we like, make out or something?"

He laughed. "We could, but if your sister finds out you'll be having fried Quinn for dinner tomorrow."

"Yummy."

"You know, I never believed this would happen to us," he stated suddenly. "The contract, I mean."

I huffed. "Imagine me!"

"I think this is gonna work out great," he continued half for himself. He sighed thoughtfully before nodding slowly. "You're a nice guy, Bert.

"Oh stop, you're making me blush!"

He grinned and grabbed me into a warm and tight hug. And then his granma smiled and exclaimed with the most sincere honesty, "What a nice couple you two make!"


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

Two years later.

I tightened my grip on the microphone. My fingerless gloves were so drenched in sweat I could barely hold it anymore. Panting, I brought it to my mouth and yelled, "Put your fucking hands up!" Immediately, I was drowned in the noise of the relentless crowd. But it wasn't loud enough. "I said PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS UP!" This time, it was loud enough to make my ears hurt. Eventually, every hand I could lay my eyes upon was hanging in the air.

_Let's do this. _I shot an accomplice glance at Brendan and he started off the beat. _One, two, three, four._

* * *

Rachel.

"_Is it worth it? Can you even hear me?"_ he sang. Every time I heard it, it felt louder and stronger. But I suppose it was just me. I hadn't assisted to a live show in a while, and I owed him that, at least. I owed Quinn that.

I smiled and glanced at my newly acquired silver ring, the one that would change my whole live. _Our_ whole lives. I loved Quinn more than anything, and I couldn't express how grateful I was that he felt the same.

Suddenly, I found myself frowning as I thought about my brother's relationship with Kate. It was too bad that they had not managed to keep it together, but Kate was just too… She was the same as she had always been. The same as Bert a few years back. But now that he was making a name for himself, now that he was fulfilled and generally happy, Kate had felt she was a burden to him, because she would never be able to do that. Because, in her opinion, she would forever be a failure.

I had tried talking to her, from one girl to another, but it wasn't a secret that we were two very different people. All I had—hopefully—managed to do was convince her to quit drugs, but I had trouble believing she would listen to me. Either way, she had broken up with Bert but had been willing to remain his "old friend." And he'd taken it. Not as well as one might hope, but well enough that he could still talk to her casually—or almost.

And now, where was she? I didn't even know anymore. She was slowly slipping away from us, all of us, but in the end I guess I didn't really care so much. She could take care of herself. It was all good.

I felt my smile return as I reached that conclusion and let the thought of my engagement take over again. I looked up to the stage. I had gotten regular tickets somewhere in the back, where I could just watch the show peacefully. It was a completely different experience for me than it would be for a normal fan, of course, but I wouldn't say it was a less intense one. Because even if I'd been to dozens of shows and even if I knew those guys beyond the stage, those were _my_ guys up there. _My_ brother, _my_ boyfriend—I mean, fiancé—and _my_ friends.

"_In this sea of lonely, _

_The taste of ink is getting old…"_

I realised that I was proud of them. Proud like a mother, almost. Mostly, proud like a sister. Bert had been to hell and back, and now he was higher than ever. Without drugs. He was _himself_ again, the Bert I had known before his hard times in high school and everything that came with that. His smile was back, the _real_ one, not the one he used to push just to make us feel better. His personality was back too, and even though sometimes he could be a pain in the ass, all the joy he radiated always reached me.

It was almost as if he was trying to catch up on all the time he'd spend pouting. His good mood had reached the point where even when he was upset he wasn't really upset. And it made me so happy, because I knew now that whatever happened, he would always be able to pull himself together again. I wasn't stupid enough to think that he would never have problems again, but I knew that when that time came, he would deal with it well, better than most people, because he would have already been through much worse. I had faith in him now. And I loved him more than ever.

"_Being half dead wasn't what I planned to be,_

_Now I'm ready to be free."_

The end.


End file.
